Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
1. Charging Orders Act 1979
2. Sale of Goods Act 1979
3. Justices of the Peace Act 1979
4. Greater London Council (Money) Act 1979
5. Sheffield General Cemetery Act 1979
6. Scottish Equitable Life Assurance Society Act 1979
7. Severn-Trent Water Authority Act 1979
8. Felixstowe Dock and Railway Act 1979

PRIVATE BUSINESS

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL (By Order)

Lords amendments agreed to.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Read the Third time, and passed, with amendments.

WEST MIDLANDS COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question proposed [28 June], That the Bill be now considered.

Debate further adjourned till Tuesday 11 December.

TYNE AND WEAR BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday 11 December.

TRADE

Return ordered

of Statistics relating to Overseas Trade of the United Kingdom for each month during the year 1980.—[Mr. Wakeham.]

Oral Answers to Questions —

Mr. Speaker: Order. I appeal to hon. Members to ask only one supplementary question rather than a string of such questions. That will enable me to call far more questions from the Order Paper.

NATIONAL FINANCE

British Petroleum

Mrs. Dunwoody: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the cost of issuing the recent sale of British Petroleum Ltd. shares; why it was necessary to have the new issue underwritten by private commercial banks and at what cost paid out of public funds; and what part was played by the commercial banks in the administration of the issue.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Biffen): The estimate laid before the House last week made clear that the cost of the recent sale of BP shares, excluding tax, was about £7½ million. As in 1977, the sale was underwritten because of the importance of getting the receipts in the financial year. The cost of underwriting was about £4 million. Six merchant banks underwrote the sale and arranged the sub-underwriting: a number of other banks assisted in the distribution of prospectuses and application forms and acted as receiving banks.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Is not that a disgraceful situation? Does not the right hon. Gentleman really mean that for a totally doctrinaire reason he is prepared, when it suits him, to give away taxpayers' assets and use private banks in order to get the stock underwritten?

Mr. Biffen: The procedures followed were almost identical to those followed by the previous Government.

Mr. Rost: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the alternative to having the stock underwritten would have been to have offered it at a lower price, and that that would have resulted in less than £7½ million coming to the revenue out of the issue?

Mr. Biffen: Absolutely—and the degree of oversubscription shows how right the Government were to employ underwriters.

Mr. Frank Allaun: May I remind the Minister that the TUC and the Labour Party have overwhelmingly agreed that the next Labour Government will re-nationalise without compensation. Is he aware that speculators who burn their fingers have only themselves to blame?

Mr. Biffen: Expropriation is made no more dignified, even when endorsed by the Labour Party and the TUC.

Economic Growth

Mr. Knox: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the rate of economic growth has been during the past 12 months.

Mr. Biffen: In the Industry Act forecast published on 22 November, the level of GDP in the second half of 1979 was estimated to be slightly above the level of a year earlier.

Mr. Knox: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in recent years economic growth in this country has been unnecessarily low? As there appears to be little evidence that damping down the rate of economic growth contributes to the battle against inflation, may I ask what measures he proposes to take to promote faster economic growth?

Mr. Biffen: I doubt whether the relationship between Government activities and the rate of economic growth is as close as my hon. Friend suggests. However, I believe that the Government are right in having the containment of inflation as the central tenet of their economic policy.

Mr. Healey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his colleague, the noble Lord Gowrie—a member of the Government in the House of Lords—said yesterday:
We believe that we are in for deflation, recession, rising unemployment over the next two years and in for the first real cut in living standards for people in many years—".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 December 1979, Vol. 403, c. 729.]
Does the right hon. Gentleman feel that that statement coincides with the manifesto on which the Government fought the last election?

Mr. Biffen: The right hon. Gentleman normally identifies me with the views that he has just quoted. It is true, as the Treasury forecast confirms, that the United Kingdom, in common with all other major economies in the Western world, will be facing a period of economic recession.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to the interesting fact that, for the first time, industrial investment in Japan has exceeded that of the United States? Does he realise that next year the figure for GNP per head in Japan is expected to equal that of America? Will he draw the appropriate conclusions from that for Opposition hon. Members?

Mr. Biffen: Absolutely.

Mr. Jay: As it is now six months since the Government's incentive Budget of June, may I ask whether the Chancellor detects any sign of industrial revival?

Mr. Biffen: The Government's views on the prospects for the economy were canvassed in yesterday's debate and during the previous week. I have nothing to add to the remarks then made.

Value Added Tax

Mr. Hannam: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received concerning value added tax charges on disabled car adaption.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Peter Rees): We have received a number of representations urging that car adaptations for disabled drivers should be relieved of VAT. Careful and sympathetic consideration has been given to these representations, but I am afraid that relief could not be justified in the context of a broadly based tax.

Mr. Hannam: Does my hon. and learned Friend realise that the Government are saving a great deal of money by not proceeding with a specialised vehicle for the disabled? Is it not increasingly important to make sure that the Motability scheme is successful in providing adapted cars for the disabled? Will he take into account that the most severely disabled have to pay the largest amounts of money for such adaptations? Will he reconsider this issue?

Mr. Rees: I shall keep the problem under review. However, my hon. Friend will recall that in the Chancellor's Budget VAT relief was given for certain Motability inputs.

Substitution Account

Mr. Hooley: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposals Her Majesty's Government intend to make within the International Monetary Fund to assist the creation of a substitution account.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Geoffrey Howe): We agreed at the IMF annual meeting in October that the next step was for the IMF executive board to examine the technical problems of setting up a substitution account. It is due to report back in April.

Mr. Hooley: Will the Chancellor be a little more positive and forthcoming? Does he agree that, in view of the fluctuations of the dollar, and the wild variations in the price of gold, it is important to bring some stability into foreign exchanges? A substitution account could help considerably.

Sir G. Howe: As I have said, at the IMF meeting we supported the steps suggested. The substitution account could, in principle, make a useful contribution to the stability of the international monetary system.

Minimum Lending Rate

Mr. Winnick: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the minimum lending rate.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The recent increase in interest rates was necessary to control monetary growth. The prospect for lower interest rates will depend upon the rate at which the growth of the money supply is reduced.

Mr. Winnick: Has the Chancellor heard City rumours of a further increase in minimum lending rate? Is it not clear that the present rate of 17 per cent. will lead only to more unemployment, recession, job stagnation and general economic decline?

Sir G. Howe: The hon Gentleman has been unusually perceptive. Until we have succeeded, by these and other means, in


getting inflation under control, the threat of higher unemployment, and all the woes that he described, will continue to exist and survive. We shall continue to pursue the right monetary policy until we have achieved those objectives.

Mr. Tapsell: Can my right hon. and learned Friend explain how it is consistent with the Government's undoubted intention to reduce the rate of inflation to issue Government stock that will pay an interest rate of 15 per cent. into the next century, instead of funding through short-dated issues?

Sir G. Howe: My hon Friend's suggestion is one of many that is considered from time to time. I am sure that he will understand that it is of crucial importance to maintain effective monetary control as part of the task of keeping inflation under control. That underlines the parallel importance of ensuring that public spending is kept under control.

Mr. Healey: Does the Chancellor agree with the Prime Minister that minimum lending rate cannot fall until public expenditure is reduced as a percentage of GDP? As the Chief Secretary admitted yesterday that public expenditure will increase next year as a percentage of GDP does he agree that minimum lending rate is more likely to rise than to fall next year?

Sir G. Howe: I shall not try to follow the convoluted analysis of the right hon. Gentleman. As he is asserting today that it is necessary to secure a more effective reduction of public expenditure to get minimum lending rate down, I welcome his support. That contrasts oddly with his assertions earlier in the week that he is in favour of a still higher public sector borrowing requirement.

Mr. Healey: The Chancellor must not try to brush off the views of his leader in that way. Those views—not mine I hasten to add—are that there is no chance of reducing minimum lending rate unless public expenditure is reduced as a percentage of GDP. The Chancellor is not achieving that. Does he agree with his leader?

Sir G. Howe: There are forums and places more appropriate than the present—

Mr. Healey: Answer.

Sir G. Howe: I shall answer the question if the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to listen. There are plenty of places in which the Prime Minister and I can exchange views about such issues and on which we express our total harmony with each other. The House is interested to know whether the Labour Party—and in particular the right hon. Gentleman—is advocating a greater reduction in public expenditure or, as appeared yesterday, increases in public expenditure.

Mr. Freud: Is the Chancellor aware that when premium bonds were launched, bank rate was 4½ per cent. and premium bonds paid 4 per cent. interest? Minimum lending rate is now 17 per cent. and premium bonds pay 5¾ per cent. interest. Is it not immoral to go on advertising premium bonds without telling the public what a lousy deal they are?

Sir G. Howe: I would not wish to cross swords with the hon. Gentleman on the subject of immorality. I acknowledge his point to this extent—

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: What does that mean?

Sir G. Howe: The existence of a gap between the interest rates payable is something that we should seek to close.

Mr. Freud: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I must ask the Chancellor to explain what he means by his remarks.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: Answer.

Sir G. Howe: I am astonished and surprised that the hon. Gentleman should be so sensitive to the preface to my remarks. I am confining my response to the question raised by the hon. Gentleman.

Exchange Controls

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the effects of his decision to abolish exchange controls.

Mr. Biffen: The abolition of exchange controls will be of benefit to the economy. It removes damaging and unnecessary restrictions on our economic relations with the rest of the world.

Mr. Dalyell: Is not one reason for the collapse of gilt sales and the rise in


interest rates in the market, which preceded the rise in minimum lending rate, the final lifting of exchange controls? Is it not an awkward fact that unless a Government are firmly pegging interest rates, exchange controls do not affect the exchange rate as much as they affect interest rates?

Mr. Biffen: The evidence does not support the hon. Gentleman's point. The problems that arose over the monetary markets which led to the establishment of a minimum lending rate of 17 per cent. referred to a period that substantially predated the lifting of exchange controls.

Mr. Woolmer: Is it not true that the abolition of exchange controls and the current high interest rates attract hot money and short-term money into the United Kingdom? What steps does the right hon. Gentleman intend to take to ensure that sterling is not threatened by rapid outflows of money in future?

Mr. Biffen: The best way to provide for an orderly market in sterling in the situation that the hon. Gentleman describes is to maintain the freedom of sterling.

Mr. John Garrett: Has the Treasury yet undertaken a study of the scope for tax avoidance as a result of ending exchange controls? Does the Treasury have any idea of the revenues that will be forgone by the Exchequer as a result of the ending of exchange controls?

Mr. Biffen: Obviously that is a matter that is being kept under close consideration.

Mortgage Repayments

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the effect per month of each 1 per cent. increase in the minimum lending rate on a mortgage of £10,000 for a buyer paying the standard rate of tax if no assistance is given by him to building societies.

Mr. Peter Rees: Changes in minimum lending rate have no direct effect on the mortgage rate; and the relation between a 1 per cent. rise in the mortgage rate and borrowers' net monthly payments depends on a number of factors. However, the increase from 11¾ per cent. to 15 per cent. on 1 January will add £16·37 to the net monthly payments of a basic rate tax-

payer with a new 25-year annuity mortgage of £10,000.

Mr. Allaun: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that that is the answer that I worked out myself? Does he realise that such a figure puts a modest home out of reach of vast numbers of ordinary couples? What do the Government propose to do about it? Do they propose to do anything?

Mr. Rees: As the hon. Gentleman is so quick in his perception of my answers he will realise that the figure contained in my answer is, for the year, £49·1. I hope that that of itself will not have the effect that he has described. The hon. Gentleman and the House will appreciate that if the monetary policies of my right hon. and learned Friend are successful these matters may be resolved more easily than he expects.

Mr. Latham: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that the time taken to get tax relief right is far too slow? Will he pay attention to that?

Mr. Rees: My hon. Friend will appreciate that it is a problem that has affected various Administrations. We have given thought to the problem. I regret that it will not be possible to recode everybody or to alter codes in the current year. However, individual taxpayers who want to be recoded may make application. Especial attention will be paid to tax repayments at the conclusion of the fiscal year.

Mr. Stoddart: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman not ashamed of himself? Are the Government not ashamed of themselves for imposing such a swingeing increase on ordinary working people who want only a roof over their heads? Is he aware that many young families are having to forgo having children as a result of the Government's policies? When will he do something about it?

Mr. Rees: I cannot accept any responsibility for the sociological consequences of an increase in the mortgage rate.

Mr. Allaun: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply beg to give notice that I intend to raise the matter on the Adjournment. The figure is not £49 but over £200.

Inflation

Mr. Rooker: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the latest rate of inflation; and how this compares with the rate 12 months ago.

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer by how much the rate of inflation has increased during the past 12 months.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The retail prices index rose by 17.2 per cent. in the 12 months to October 1979. The tax and price index, which is probably a better guide to changes in taxpayers' costs over the year, rose by 14.8 per cent. over the same period. The RPI rose by 7.8 per cent in the 12 months up to October 1978.

Mr. Rooker: If the rising rate of inflation leads to a further growth in tax avoidance schemes, such as that perpetrated by The Rossminster Group Ltd., will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give an assurance that his hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State will not be put in charge of any crack-down on such schemes, in view of his work for the Rossminster group and others?

Mr. William Hamilton: Immorality.

Mr. Russell Kerr: What price immorality now?

Sir G. Howe: I suppose that I must expect from the hon. Gentleman a question that has nothing to do with the question tabled.

Mr. Janner: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the main burden of these dangerous inflationary increases is already falling on those who are least able to bear them?

Sir G. Howe: The burden of inflationary increases bears harshly on every section of the community, including those who are seeking to work and to stay in employment. That is why we regard the battle against inflation as the central part of the Government's policy. I shall be grateful for the hon. and learned Gentleman's support in that task.

Mr. John Townend: To what extent does my right hon. and learned Friend consider that the increases are due to the explosion in public sector pay last

winter? To what extent does he feel that the infamous Proffesor Clegg is responsible? Has he any plans to do away with Proffesor Clegg?

Sir G. Howe: I know that some of my hon. Friends are anxious to lay a good many things at the door of Professor Clegg, who has probably collected more epithets than most other professors in the past few weeks. I agree with my hon. Friend that one of the factors contributing to the accelerating rate of inflation that we inherited is the way in which the incomes policy adopted by the Labour Government collapsed so manifestly during last winter.

Mr. Healey: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is extraordinary if he regards what happened in the last pay round as the collapse of an incomes policy when the Prime Minister has welcomed a 20 per cent. settlement in an industry where productivity has increased by only ½ per cent. in the past 12 months as a triumph for free collective bargaining? Does he continue to claim that the 6 per cent. increase in the RPI that has been generated by his actions since the general election is a once-and for-all increase?

Sir G. Howe: The right hon. Gentleman once again seeks to overlook the fact that increases in the RPI resulting from the switch from direct to indirect taxation are once-and-for-all. I do not think that anyone would claim that any settlement of 20peroent. is in line with our much lower rate of growth and productivity. It is my assertion—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give the Government his support in this respect—that the attempt to achieve over a prolonged period sustained reductions in the overall level of pay bargaining by means of a constraining statutory or semi-statutory incomes policy has not been seen to be successful. It inevitably results in an explosion of pay settlements of the sort that we have seen in the past 12 months.

Mr. Healey: The right hon. and learned Gentleman invited me to agree with him. In fact I disagree totally. These levels of pay increases under the Government, incited by an increase in the cost of living of 6 per cent. that has been generated by their fiscal action, proves that the fatuous idea of the right hon. and


learned Gentleman—that if the Government increase the cost of living by 6 per cent. working men will make no attempt to compensate for that—is completely at variance with the whole of experience.

Mr. Marland: Question.

Sir G. Howe: Distilling, as best I may, a question from a series of observations, I must say that the right hon. Gentleman does little credit to himself and his reputation if he fails to recognise from his own experience the way in which the ending of a period of tight income restraint under an incomes policy inevitably leads to the difficulties of a pay explosion. I should welcome the support that he should be offering to us as a result of his rather battered experience.

Mr. Adley: As we have had two supplementary questions from the author of Britain's problems, will my right hon. and learned Friend indicate how long he thinks it will be before his policies begin to overcome the damage done to the nation by the Labour Government?

Sir G. Howe: My hon. Friend overrates the importance of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). Although the right hon. Gentleman was the author of a great deal of disaster he should not be regarded as having produced disaster single-handed. As we have said many times, the conquest of our deep-seated economic problems, which in our manifesto we described as the most serious at any time since the war, is bound to take a substantial time. I hope that signs of progress will begin to appear quite shortly.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: In view of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's answer about wage bargaining, will he confirm that he is not asking trade unionists to accept a cut in their living standards by negotiating settlements that are less than the rise in the index?

Sir G. Howe: I am glad to have the opportunity to address myself to that question. The hon. Gentleman will realise that probably up to 2¾ per cent. of the increase in prices that has taken place in the past 12 months is attributable to the huge increase in oil prices during that period. He must recognise that no Government can protect the pub-

lic from the consequences of that sort of increase on their standard of living. The Government do not suggest that pay bargaining should be undertaken with a view to securing protection against this or that increase in the retail prices index. It must be undertaken by reference to the extent to which the employers' organisation can afford a given pay increase. I am very glad indeed to see a much wider acceptance of the reality that is necessary to accept the case for a much wider spread of pay settlements.

Industrial Investment

Mr. Straw asked: the Chancellor of the Exchequer what policies he has for stimulating industrial investment in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Biffen: The prospects for industrial investment depend on reducing inflation, which undermines business confidence and adversely affects profitability. Overcoming inflation is the Government's first priority. We have also taken measures to improve financial rewards for enterprise.

Mr. Straw: As the Government's record has been one of increasing inflation, is it not the case that over the next two years we shall see increasing redundancies, the destruction of many sectors of our manufacturing industry, and a rising number of bankruptcies among small businesses? Does the Chief Secretary have any evidence to support his optimism about the future of the manufacturing sector in this country?

Mr. Biffen: I am not usually accused of being optimistic. There is no doubt, on the basis of most forecasts, including that from within the Treasury, that the next 12 months or so will be a period of at least mild recession. That is bound to take its toll.

Mr. Chapman: With the possible exception of increasing the tax depreciation on investment in industrial buildings, would my right hon. Friend accept that the greatest stimulus that could be given to industrial buildings would come about by minimising the bureaucracy on planning and the interpretation and application of building and other regulations? Would he have a word with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment about these important matters?

Mr. Biffen: I shall certainly draw my hon. Friend's question to the attention of my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: As the Chief Secretary points to more and more distant horizons for the achievement of his objectives, will he bear in mind that he stated in his White Paper for 1980–81 that one of his three central objectives was to restore incentives? In what way does he now expect to restore any incentives in 1980–81?

Mr. Biffen: By the emphasis in our policies on the virtues of price and profit.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: How does the Chief Secretary square the statement made by his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor in the debate on his first Budget that he was creating an opportunity State with the fact that every single action of the Government has damaged employment prospects—and damaged them most seriously in the North-West and on Merseyside? When will the Government create the opportunities for my constituents to find work?

Mr. Biffen: I simply cannot accept the premise in the hon. Gentleman's question. If public spending were the premise for increased employment, the North-West should now be prospering

Share Ownership

Mr. Hordern: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposals he has to encourage the wider ownership of shares.

Mr. Biffen: It remains our intention, as we made clear in our election manifesto, to encourage employee share ownership and to ensure that our tax policies generally will provide incentives to save and build up capital. We are examining possible methods of achieving these aims.

Mr. Hordern: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the wider ownership of shares goes much further than employee share-ownership? Does he also agree that the wider ownership of shares is just as important a part in forming a property-owning democracy as is the ability of a tenant to buy a council house? Will he look with particular interest at the schemes that are practised in France, and the other proposals which

have been put to him? Will he urge his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor to bring forward suitable proposals in his Budget Statement?

Mr. Biffen: I agree with my hon. Friend that the concept of industrial democracy must extend to the widest possible spread of share ownership. Like him, I have noted with interest the experience in France from the loi Monory. All those and other relevant considerations will be taken into account by my right hon. and learned Friend when he frames his Budget.

Mr. Robert Hughes: As the record level of minimum lending rate has led to a remarkably high level of mortgage interest and as an average borrower of, say, £8,000, has to find an additional £1 for every working day, can the right hon. Gentleman say where people will obtain the money with which to purchase shares?

Mr. Biffen: That raises more general topics on the economy which were debated yesterday. I do not think that they arise from the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham and Crawley (Mr. Hordern).

Money Supply

Mr. Budgen: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will now publish the medium term targets for the money supply.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: As I said to the House on 8 November, I am currently considering whether there would be advantage in formulating more precisely our longer term monetary objectives, which I reaffirmed in my statement on 15 November.

Mr. Budgen: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the great advantage of publishing these targets, at least in brackets, would be to make it plain to the whole nation that even if the Government wanted to execute a U-turn, once those targets had been published, they could not do so?

Sir G. Howe: I am glad to endorse the entirely hypothetical nature of my hon. Friend's question, as no such contemplation is in our mind. I agree with him that there are certainly powerful arguments to be advanced in favour of publishing


targets in that way. I have not excluded those arguments from my consideration.

Mr. Horam: As the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not publish medium term targets for money supply and as he is apparently already reconsidering the public expenditure plans that we discussed only yesterday may I ask what has happened to the attempt to abandon the fine tuning of the economy?

Sir G. Howe: The hon. Gentleman must misunderstand the context in which the phrase "fine tuning" has developed. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) does not make his own comprehension of the position any better by laughing at it.
The case for considering monetary targets over a period of time, as suggested by my hon. Friend, is designed precisely to make less likely fine tuning of the kind that this Administration have, in any event, discarded.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, whether or not we publish long-term monetary targets, the achievement of a gradual and steady contraction in the rate of growth in the money supply, without exorbitant interest rates, is dependent on a continuing, gradual decline, year by year, in the money size of the public sector borrowing requirement?

Sir G. Howe: I endorse my hon. Friend's restatement of the objective I set in my Budget speech, namely the reduction from year to year of the rate of growth of the money supply. I also endorse, within that, the objective of securing a reduction in the size of the public sector borrowing requirement. Whether that should follow the same smooth and steady downward path as the reduction of the money supply is a matter for consideration.

Middle East

Mr. David Price: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what action he proposes to take, both nationally and in conjunction with the Finance Ministers of other member States of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, to diminish the adverse economic effects of a deteriorating situation in the Middle East.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am in frequent contact with by counterparts abroad on the economic implications of events in the Middle East. I had the opportunity last week to meet the United States Treasury Secretary, Mr. Miller, after his visit there.

Mr. Price: Does my right hon and learned Friend agree that the Middle East position suggests at the moment a rapid increase in the OPEC price of oil and increasing political instability? Does he further agree that if action is not taken, both at home and abroad with our allies in the OECD, such a situation could be detrimental to our economic prospects?

Sir G. Howe: There are certainly factors, both economic and political, of the kind my hon. Friend described, which make it necessary for us to remain in the closest possible contact with our friends and economic partners around the world.

Lending Rates

Mr. Ioan Evans: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what international action is proposed to seek to reduce lending rates.

Mr. Biffen: It became clear at the IMF's annual meeting in Belgrade in October that there is now widespread international agreement on the central importance of reducing inflation and the need to adopt policies to achieve this. As these policies take effect, I would expect to see generally lower interest rates.

Mr. Evans: As the Government have increased MLR from 12 per cent. to 17 per cent., which is now a record high, will not they enter into discussions with other Governments to obtain general reduction in rates rather than competing with each other in putting up their rates, with this Government leading the way?

Mr. Biffen: I think that the hon. Gentleman will have to recognise that most of the countries in the Western world are seeking to contain the problems of inflation by essentially monetary means. Therefore there is, to some extent, bound to be a degree of competition between interest rates.

Mr. Tapsell: Before we embark on the extremely important task of international co-operation in these matters, will my right hon. Friend say what steps have


been taken to investigate the reasons for the misleading advice which, presumably, Ministers received about the growth of the monetary aggregates in the October banking month? Do the Government aim to make their policies less dependent on these inherently unreliable forecasts?

Mr. Biffen: Neither the Chancellor nor I would seek to hide behind the shield of claiming that we had been badly advised. Advice was given in good faith and we acted on it. We stand by our actions.

Mr. Robert Sheldon: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall the promises made at the last general election to the small business? Is he aware that, whatever he does for the small business from now on, or whatever he has done for it in the past, will by no means compensate for the disasters that will be caused by the 17 per cent. minimum lending rate and the restrictive practices that he is now pursuing?

Mr. Biffen: I am well aware that high interest rates adversely affect the small business sector of the community possibly more than any other. That is one reason why we are determined to pursue our policies to ensure that there can be a reduction from the present levels as early as possible. We shall not prejudice our policy by panic and premature movement.

Mr. Body: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the more Governments around the world tend to borrow rather than tax, the more will interest rates tend to rise?

Mr. Biffen: That is a fair point.

Mr. Healey: Is it not the case that the reason why the original estimates of what would happen to the money supply have proved mistaken was that private bank lending to the private sector was not diminished by the 14 per cent. minimum lending rate introduced by the Government in June? There is no reason to believe that the 17 per cent. MLR will produce the necessary effect on private bank lending. That is borne out by the experience of other countries. Is it not the case that this Government, like others, will be compelled to resort to direct control of bank lending, as the United States is already doing to some

degree and as France has done for a long time?

Mr. Biffen: Of course, time will reveal whether the confident assertions of the right hon. Gentleman will be validated. He argued earlier this afternoon that a severe recession is impending. It would be extraordinary if that did not have some impact on private bank lending.

West Germany (Finance Minister)

Mr. Leighton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects to meet his West German counterpart.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I meet my West German counterpart regularly at EEC Finance Councils and at the twice-yearly bilateral consultations with the German Government. I expect to see him next at the Finance Council on 17 December.

Mr. Leighton: When the right hon. and learned Gentleman next meets his counterpart, will he take up with him the exorbitant cost of running the British Army of the Rhine? Is he aware that it now costs well over £1 billion per annum? I understand that if the troops were kept in this country we would still have to pay for them. However, does he not agree that it is worrying that the foreign exchange costs are about £600 billion to £700 billion per annum, which is equivalent to a loss of exports of £700 billion? The Germans are well able to pay—we are not. If they are not prepared to offset those costs, does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that we should consider bringing the troops back to Britain?

Sir G. Howe: I would not consider the remedy suggested by the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, we have no plans for raising the question of offset with the German Government. I agree that the burden of defence costs arising outside the United Kingdom is considerable. It is another substantial reason for wishing to end the inequitable burden of our net contribution to the Community.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Since the Germans have an economic structure similar to ours and a similar population but no oil, a gross national product two and a half times greater than ours and higher productivity per head in steel, coal and so on, will my right hon. and learned Friend emulate the German practice of a free


market economy—even one run by Socialist Ministers?

Sir G. Howe: Many aspects of the West German economy and the way that it is managed give us cause for admiration. Perhaps the most fortunate aspect of the German political system is that its Social Democratic Party has acquired so much more wisdom than ours.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: In answer to a question from the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Price), the Chancellor said that we must have regular consultations with our economic friends and allies. Will he tell me who are our economic friends and allies? Are they our EEC partners?

Sir G. Howe: Our economic friends and allies include our partners in the Community, certainly, but they include all those who share our interest in the effective operation of liberal economies in the free world.

National Savings Certificates

Mr. Chapman: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects to complete his review of the types and conditions of issue of national savings certificates.

Mr. Peter Rees: The terms and conditions of all National Savings instruments were reviewed recently. Following this review, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary announced to the House on 15 November the introduction of a new nineteenth issue of national savings certificates and an increase in the maximum holdings limit for retirement issue certificates from £700 to £1,200.

Mr. Chapman: I welcome, particularly, the increase to £1,200 in the maximum holding of the retirement issue national savings certificates. However, will my hon. and learned Friend look sympathetically at the proposal that men between the ages of 60 and 64should also be allowed to secure that special issue, to avoid incurring any charge of sex discrimination?

Mr. Rees: I have noted the views that my hon. Friend expressed on 8 November in his question. The House will appreciate that the national retirement age provides a convenient and readily understood qualifying condition. In view

of that, and the wide range of national savings facilities that are available, we believe, for the time being at least, that the present age qualification for men should remain as it is. I assure the House and my hon. Friend that, as with all other terms of national savings, the matter will be kept under review.

PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

Mr. Budgen: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 6 December.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be having further meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. Later today, I shall be meeting the Prime Minister of the Netherlands and, this evening, I shall give a dinner for him.

Mr. Budgen: Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that a reduction of up to 15 per cent. in the number of immigrants from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan cannot properly be described as an end to immigration as we have known it since the war? Will she take the opportunity today to make a statement in which she gives her personal undertaking that legislative time will be found in the next Session of Parliament to introduce both a register and a British nationality Bill?

The Prime Minister: I cannot give an undertaking about legislation in the next Session because we do not know what the pressures on legislation will be. The only decision that has been taken about the register and a quota, both of which would require substantive legislation, was not to introduce a Bill in this Session but to proceed by order to undertake those matters which could proceed more rapidly.

Mr. Bidwell: Will the right hon. Lady, when she has time, ponder on the fact that many of her more enlightened hon. Friends refused to vote in the recent proposals on immigration? Will she take great heed of that fact, because many people in Europe, particularly in the EEC, will find it a little queer that our first woman Prime Minister has made proposals for discrimination against her own


sex—that is, the women in this country who have received settlement rights?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman forgets that the vast majority of my enlightened hon. Friends fully supported the Government in carrying out the proposals which were foreshadowed in the manifesto.

Mr. Graham Page: Has my right hon. Friend read the report in the press today of the comment by Mr. Scargill that secret ballots are a subtle interference with unions? Will she take pleasure in expressing at a public meeting today her pleasure in the result of the subtle interference with the miners and with British Leyland?

The Prime Minister: As my right hon. Friend knows, we are very much in favour of secret ballots. I believe that they are the only way of properly revealing what the work force wants. We were delighted with the result of the miners' secret ballot, in that it rejected industrial action.

Mr. James Lamond: Does the right hon. Lady believe that it is right that her representatives should go to Brussels next week to take a decision about nuclear missiles before the matter has been discussed in this Parliament? Is she aware that we are one of the few western European countries in NATO who have not discussed the matter? Therefore, does she agree that her representative will go representing only the Tory Party and not Britain as a whole?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend goes to Brussels representing the Government, who had a majority from the people of Britain as a whole at the last election.

Dr. Mawhinney: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, although most of us agree with more open government, we do not mean by that leaks of confidential minutes from Cabinet Committees, including those chaired by my right hon. Friend, such as have appeared in The Guardian today? Can my right hon. Friend say what steps are being taken to find those who are leaking confidential minutes and will she assure us that when those people are discovered, whether they are in government or the Civil Service, they will be fired, not for

their political views, but because of their unfitness for office?

The Prime Minister: There was a leak and there will, of course, be the customary leak inquiry. [Laughter.] I believe that it is only the second leak of Cabinet papers in recent times. The first, which was serious, took place under the previous Government. This is the first leak under the present Government. There will be a leak inquiry because it is extremely serious if Cabinet or Cabinet committee minutes find their way on to the front pages of newspapers. One cannot carry on government on that basis. We had better wait and see what the inquiry discovers.

Mr. Dormand: asked the Prime Minister, if she will list her official engagements for 6 December.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I have just given.

Mr. Dormand: Will the Prime Minister take the necessary action today to stop the importing of coking coal? Is it not a crazy system that this island, which is virtually made of coal, imports millions of tons of the stuff, which is threatening the jobs of thousands, not only in my part of the country? If the Prime Minister is so concerned about the financial aspects of the matter, what does she have to say about the fact that our coal industry receives a subsidy of 94p per ton, compared with subsidies in EEC countries ranging from £14 to £24 per ton? Is that not manifestly unfair, not only to our coal industry, but to our steel industry?

The Prime Minister: The load in question came from the United States on a Greek ship. I will not interfere in the argument between the National Coal Board and the British Steel Corporation. I understand that the Wales TUC is trying to get people together and that Mr. Len Murray is intervening.
There is a problem for both industries. It is understood that the miners naturally wish to sell as much coke as they can, but it is important to the future of the steel industry and the jobs init that that industry is able to get coke at as reasonable a price as it can.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I understand that my right hon. Friend expressed yesterday a certain amount of pleasure, and no doubt relief, at the fact that the miners had settled their pay claim as a result of their ballot. Will she make clear to other groups in the public sector, professional and otherwise, that they will not be justified in asking for a similar rise, as they did in 1974?

The Prime Minister: I make no comment on the level of the settlement, though there was a cogent comment in today's Daily Mirror about the level, which undoubtedly could not be sustained in other industries. The pleasure that we felt was that the ballot showed that people did not wish to pursue industrial action.

Mr. Dalyell: Will the Prime Minister undertake to ask the Dutch Prime Minister about a leak that was infinitely more far reaching than any leak of Cabinet papers? I refer to the leak of crucial nuclear secrets from the centrifuge project at Almelo. Will the right hon. Lady ask the Dutch Prime Minister how that situation occurred, since it is arguably more damaging to peace in the world than anything done by the Rosen-bergs or any other atom spies?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman knows that we have already made protests about this matter, which involved a person who had been working at that plant of Uren co on enriched uranium and the centrifuge process and then went to work in Pakistan, where we are trying to see that there is not proliferation of production of nuclear materials or any nuclear weapons. The matter is not on the agenda, but I shall reinforce the protest that we have already made.

Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Has my right hon. Friend noted the growing spate of truly horrific murders? Does she agree that there are many who have lost their lives in those dreadful crimes so that hon. Members can keep their consciences? Does she agree that if we had a referendum on the return of the death penalty, the great majority of our people would vote overwhelmingly for its return?

The Prime Minister: We were all horrified at a particular recent case, but, as my hon. Friend knows, the question

whether there should be a return of capital punishment was dealt with in a debate in the House earlier this Session.

Mr. Skinner: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 6 December.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave earlier.

Mr. Skinner: Does the Prime Minister recall that last week she referred in strident tones to the callous disregard for humanity shown by those who were allegedly threatening to close Charing Cross hospital? Will she now, in loud and clear tones, repeat that to the Tory health authorities and Tory councils up and down the country which are threatening the closure of wards and hospitals, including the Lang with Lodge diabetic hospital near my constituency? If she fails to do that, she can be properly accused by hospital patients and millions of others of operating double standards.

The Prime Minister: I am delighted to know that we shall have the hon. Gentleman's support when we introduce a Bill to reduce administration in the National Health Service. I shall tell all health authorities that it is far better for them to reduce administration than services to the public.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Will the Prime Minister lend her great authority and influence to an initiative designed to save life in Rhodesia? In the period between the signing of the ceasefire and its implementation, will she use all the communications media available to her Government to suggest that there is no excuse for either side to carry loaded weapons?

The Prime Minister: It is far better to leave any further statement to the negotiations at Lancaster House. As my hon. Friend knows, we had hoped that there would be a ceasefire on all sides at the beginning of those talks. There was not, but I believe that we are near to one now. I think that it is best to leave the negotiations to the negotiators there who have already been so brilliantly successful.

Mr. Spriggs: Has the Prime Minister received any correspondence about the Providence hospital in St. Helens? If


so, would she care to make a statement about the position there?

The Prime Minister: We get at least 11,000 letters coming in to my office each week. Before making any statement about the matter to which the hon. Gentleman refers, I prefer to consider it carefully.

Mr. Tapsell: Has my right hon. Friend noted that a distinguished American has said that our noble Friend Lord Carrington ought to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?

The Prime Minister: I have not seen that suggestion, but I am pleased to add "And so say all of us."

Mr. Leighton: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 6 December.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave earlier.

Mr. Leighton: Is the Prime Minister worried about the way in which the country is being swamped by imports, particularly of manufactured goods and particularly from the original EEC Six with which we have a horrendous deficit of £4,000 million this year, leading to factory closures and mass unemployment? Will she read carefully the speech made last night by her hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark), who advocated import controls? Unless we have import controls, as part of an economic package, we shall have an industrial desert in Britain.

The Prime Minister: I am obviously worried about the amounts of imports and particularly the latest figures about the degree to which foreign cars are penetrating our home market. That means that there is a tremendous opportunity for car firms here to increase their output, because the market and the demand are here and our car firms must take advantage of that opportunity. I must be absolutely frank with the hon. Gentleman. We are against import controls. This country could not survive without considerable manufacturing exports. I believe that if we were to put on import controls, our export trade would be extremely badly hit.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Freud: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I reminded the House yesterday that I prefer to take points of order at the end of statements. I understand that the hon. Gentleman's point of order is likely to arise out of what happened at Question Time and therefore I will take it now. Mr. Freud.

Mr. Freud: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I believe that the House has always cared deeply about the honour and the integrity of individual Members of Parliament. I know that you, Mr. Speaker, have always upheld this. During Question Time, I pointed out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the disparity between the interest rate for premium bonds and the minimum lending rate was now 12 per cent. and asked whether it was not immoral to go on advertising premium bonds to the public without advising the public of the dangers, or certainly of the poor investment prospects. The Chancellor replied "I do not wish to cross swords with the hon. Gentleman on the subject of immorality."
You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that I asked the Chancellor to explain what he meant. He said that he was surprised and astonished that anyone should be sensitive to that accusation.

Mr. Skinner: He is so dull himself, he does not realise that other people are sensitive.

Mr. Freud: I believe that it was a personal slur. I should be happy, Mr. Speaker, to accept an apology or to cross swords with the Chancellor.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Geoffrey Howe): The hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) has a reputation for integrity which stands very high—at least as high as his reputation as a humorist. If any light-hearted political observation of mine cast any kind of doubt or shadow whatever on his personal integrity, I am as happy to withdraw that as I am to pay tribute to him in every other respect.

NATIONAL FINANCE

British Petroleum

Mrs. Dunwoody: 1. Mrs. Dunwoody asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the cost of issuing the recent sale of British Petroleum Ltd. shares; why it was necessary to have the new issue underwritten by private commercial banks and at what cost paid out of public funds; and what part was played by the commercial banks in the administration of the issue.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Biffen): The estimate laid before the House last week made clear that the cost of the recent sale of BP shares, excluding tax, was about £7½ million. As in 1977, the sale was underwritten because of the importance of getting the receipts in the financial year. The cost of underwriting was about £4 million. Six merchant banks underwrote the sale and arranged the sub-underwriting: a number of other banks assisted in the distribution of prospectuses and application forms and acted as receiving banks.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Is not that a disgraceful situation? Does not the right hon. Gentleman really mean that for a totally doctrinaire reason he is prepared, when it suits him, to give away taxpayers' assets and use private banks in order to get the stock underwritten?

Mr. Biffen: The procedures followed were almost identical to those followed by the previous Government.

Mr. Rost: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the alternative to having the stock underwritten would have been to have offered it at a lower price, and that that would have resulted in less than £7½ million coming to the revenue out of the issue?

Mr. Biffen: Absolutely—and the degree of oversubscription shows how right the Government were to employ underwriters.

Mr. Frank Allaun: May I remind the Minister that the TUC and the Labour Party have overwhelmingly agreed that the next Labour Government will re-nationalise without compensation. Is he aware that speculators who burn their fingers have only themselves to blame?

Mr. Biffen: Expropriation is made no more dignified, even when endorsed by the Labour Party and the TUC.

Economic Growth

Mr. Knox: 3. Mr. Knox asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the rate of economic growth has been during the past 12 months.

Mr. Biffen: In the Industry Act forecast published on 22 November, the level of GDP in the second half of 1979 was estimated to be slightly above the level of a year earlier.

Mr. Knox: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in recent years economic growth in this country has been unnecessarily low? As there appears to be little evidence that damping down the rate of economic growth contributes to the battle against inflation, may I ask what measures he proposes to take to promote faster economic growth?

Mr. Biffen: I doubt whether the relationship between Government activities and the rate of economic growth is as close as my hon. Friend suggests. However, I believe that the Government are right in having the containment of inflation as the central tenet of their economic policy.

Mr. Healey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his colleague, the noble Lord Gowrie—a member of the Government in the House of Lords—said yesterday:
We believe that we are in for deflation, recession, rising unemployment over the next two years and in for the first real cut in living standards for people in many years—".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 December 1979, Vol. 403, c. 729.]
Does the right hon. Gentleman feel that that statement coincides with the manifesto on which the Government fought the last election?

Mr. Biffen: The right hon. Gentleman normally identifies me with the views that he has just quoted. It is true, as the Treasury forecast confirms, that the United Kingdom, in common with all other major economies in the Western world, will be facing a period of economic recession.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to the interesting fact that, for the first time, industrial investment in Japan has exceeded that of the United States? Does he realise that next year the figure for GNP per head in Japan is expected to equal that of America? Will he draw the appropriate conclusions from that for Opposition hon. Members?

Mr. Biffen: Absolutely.

Mr. Jay: As it is now six months since the Government's incentive Budget of June, may I ask whether the Chancellor detects any sign of industrial revival?

Mr. Biffen: The Government's views on the prospects for the economy were canvassed in yesterday's debate and during the previous week. I have nothing to add to the remarks then made.

Value Added Tax

Mr. Hannam: 4. Mr. Hannam asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received concerning value added tax charges on disabled car adaption.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Peter Rees): We have received a number of representations urging that car adaptations for disabled drivers should be relieved of VAT. Careful and sympathetic consideration has been given to these representations, but I am afraid that relief could not be justified in the context of a broadly based tax.

Mr. Hannam: Does my hon. and learned Friend realise that the Government are saving a great deal of money by not proceeding with a specialised vehicle for the disabled? Is it not increasingly important to make sure that the Motability scheme is successful in providing adapted cars for the disabled? Will he take into account that the most severely disabled have to pay the largest amounts of money for such adaptations? Will he reconsider this issue?

Mr. Rees: I shall keep the problem under review. However, my hon. Friend will recall that in the Chancellor's Budget VAT relief was given for certain Motability inputs.

Substitution Account

Mr. Hooley: 5. Mr. Hooley asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposals Her Majesty's Government intend to make within the International Monetary Fund to assist the creation of a substitution account.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Geoffrey Howe): We agreed at the IMF annual meeting in October that the next step was for the IMF executive board to examine the technical problems of setting up a substitution account. It is due to report back in April.

Mr. Hooley: Will the Chancellor be a little more positive and forthcoming? Does he agree that, in view of the fluctuations of the dollar, and the wild variations in the price of gold, it is important to bring some stability into foreign exchanges? A substitution account could help considerably.

Sir G. Howe: As I have said, at the IMF meeting we supported the steps suggested. The substitution account could, in principle, make a useful contribution to the stability of the international monetary system.

Minimum Lending Rate

Mr. Winnick: 6. Mr. Winnick asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the minimum lending rate.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The recent increase in interest rates was necessary to control monetary growth. The prospect for lower interest rates will depend upon the rate at which the growth of the money supply is reduced.

Mr. Winnick: Has the Chancellor heard City rumours of a further increase in minimum lending rate? Is it not clear that the present rate of 17 per cent. will lead only to more unemployment, recession, job stagnation and general economic decline?

Sir G. Howe: The hon Gentleman has been unusually perceptive. Until we have succeeded, by these and other means, in


getting inflation under control, the threat of higher unemployment, and all the woes that he described, will continue to exist and survive. We shall continue to pursue the right monetary policy until we have achieved those objectives.

Mr. Tapsell: Can my right hon. and learned Friend explain how it is consistent with the Government's undoubted intention to reduce the rate of inflation to issue Government stock that will pay an interest rate of 15 per cent. into the next century, instead of funding through short-dated issues?

Sir G. Howe: My hon Friend's suggestion is one of many that is considered from time to time. I am sure that he will understand that it is of crucial importance to maintain effective monetary control as part of the task of keeping inflation under control. That underlines the parallel importance of ensuring that public spending is kept under control.

Mr. Healey: Does the Chancellor agree with the Prime Minister that minimum lending rate cannot fall until public expenditure is reduced as a percentage of GDP? As the Chief Secretary admitted yesterday that public expenditure will increase next year as a percentage of GDP does he agree that minimum lending rate is more likely to rise than to fall next year?

Sir G. Howe: I shall not try to follow the convoluted analysis of the right hon. Gentleman. As he is asserting today that it is necessary to secure a more effective reduction of public expenditure to get minimum lending rate down, I welcome his support. That contrasts oddly with his assertions earlier in the week that he is in favour of a still higher public sector borrowing requirement.

Mr. Healey: The Chancellor must not try to brush off the views of his leader in that way. Those views—not mine I hasten to add—are that there is no chance of reducing minimum lending rate unless public expenditure is reduced as a percentage of GDP. The Chancellor is not achieving that. Does he agree with his leader?

Sir G. Howe: There are forums and places more appropriate than the present—

Mr. Healey: Answer.

Sir G. Howe: I shall answer the question if the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to listen. There are plenty of places in which the Prime Minister and I can exchange views about such issues and on which we express our total harmony with each other. The House is interested to know whether the Labour Party—and in particular the right hon. Gentleman—is advocating a greater reduction in public expenditure or, as appeared yesterday, increases in public expenditure.

Mr. Freud: Is the Chancellor aware that when premium bonds were launched, bank rate was 4½ per cent. and premium bonds paid 4 per cent. interest? Minimum lending rate is now 17 per cent. and premium bonds pay 5¾ per cent. interest. Is it not immoral to go on advertising premium bonds without telling the public what a lousy deal they are?

Sir G. Howe: I would not wish to cross swords with the hon. Gentleman on the subject of immorality. I acknowledge his point to this extent—

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: What does that mean?

Sir G. Howe: The existence of a gap between the interest rates payable is something that we should seek to close.

Mr. Freud: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I must ask the Chancellor to explain what he means by his remarks.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: Answer.

Sir G. Howe: I am astonished and surprised that the hon. Gentleman should be so sensitive to the preface to my remarks. I am confining my response to the question raised by the hon. Gentleman.

Exchange Controls

Mr. Dalyell: 7. Mr. Dalyell asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the effects of his decision to abolish exchange controls.

Mr. Biffen: The abolition of exchange controls will be of benefit to the economy. It removes damaging and unnecessary restrictions on our economic relations with the rest of the world.

Mr. Dalyell: Is not one reason for the collapse of gilt sales and the rise in


interest rates in the market, which preceded the rise in minimum lending rate, the final lifting of exchange controls? Is it not an awkward fact that unless a Government are firmly pegging interest rates, exchange controls do not affect the exchange rate as much as they affect interest rates?

Mr. Biffen: The evidence does not support the hon. Gentleman's point. The problems that arose over the monetary markets which led to the establishment of a minimum lending rate of 17 per cent. referred to a period that substantially predated the lifting of exchange controls.

Mr. Woolmer: Is it not true that the abolition of exchange controls and the current high interest rates attract hot money and short-term money into the United Kingdom? What steps does the right hon. Gentleman intend to take to ensure that sterling is not threatened by rapid outflows of money in future?

Mr. Biffen: The best way to provide for an orderly market in sterling in the situation that the hon. Gentleman describes is to maintain the freedom of sterling.

Mr. John Garrett: Has the Treasury yet undertaken a study of the scope for tax avoidance as a result of ending exchange controls? Does the Treasury have any idea of the revenues that will be forgone by the Exchequer as a result of the ending of exchange controls?

Mr. Biffen: Obviously that is a matter that is being kept under close consideration.

Mortgage Repayments

Mr. Frank Allaun: 8. Mr. Frank Allaun asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the effect per month of each 1 per cent. increase in the minimum lending rate on a mortgage of £10,000 for a buyer paying the standard rate of tax if no assistance is given by him to building societies.

Mr. Peter Rees: Changes in minimum lending rate have no direct effect on the mortgage rate; and the relation between a 1 per cent. rise in the mortgage rate and borrowers' net monthly payments depends on a number of factors. However, the increase from 11¾ per cent. to 15 per cent. on 1 January will add £16·37 to the net monthly payments of a basic rate tax-

payer with a new 25-year annuity mortgage of £10,000.

Mr. Allaun: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that that is the answer that I worked out myself? Does he realise that such a figure puts a modest home out of reach of vast numbers of ordinary couples? What do the Government propose to do about it? Do they propose to do anything?

Mr. Rees: As the hon. Gentleman is so quick in his perception of my answers he will realise that the figure contained in my answer is, for the year, £49·1. I hope that that of itself will not have the effect that he has described. The hon. Gentleman and the House will appreciate that if the monetary policies of my right hon. and learned Friend are successful these matters may be resolved more easily than he expects.

Mr. Latham: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that the time taken to get tax relief right is far too slow? Will he pay attention to that?

Mr. Rees: My hon. Friend will appreciate that it is a problem that has affected various Administrations. We have given thought to the problem. I regret that it will not be possible to recode everybody or to alter codes in the current year. However, individual taxpayers who want to be recoded may make application. Especial attention will be paid to tax repayments at the conclusion of the fiscal year.

Mr. Stoddart: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman not ashamed of himself? Are the Government not ashamed of themselves for imposing such a swingeing increase on ordinary working people who want only a roof over their heads? Is he aware that many young families are having to forgo having children as a result of the Government's policies? When will he do something about it?

Mr. Rees: I cannot accept any responsibility for the sociological consequences of an increase in the mortgage rate.

Mr. Allaun: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply beg to give notice that I intend to raise the matter on the Adjournment. The figure is not £49 but over £200.

Inflation

Mr. Rooker: 10. Mr. Rooker asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the latest rate of inflation; and how this compares with the rate 12 months ago.

Mr. Greville Janner: 15. Mr. Greville Janner asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer by how much the rate of inflation has increased during the past 12 months.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The retail prices index rose by 17.2 per cent. in the 12 months to October 1979. The tax and price index, which is probably a better guide to changes in taxpayers' costs over the year, rose by 14.8 per cent. over the same period. The RPI rose by 7.8 per cent in the 12 months up to October 1978.

Mr. Rooker: If the rising rate of inflation leads to a further growth in tax avoidance schemes, such as that perpetrated by The Rossminster Group Ltd., will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give an assurance that his hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State will not be put in charge of any crack-down on such schemes, in view of his work for the Rossminster group and others?

Mr. William Hamilton: Immorality.

Mr. Russell Kerr: What price immorality now?

Sir G. Howe: I suppose that I must expect from the hon. Gentleman a question that has nothing to do with the question tabled.

Mr. Janner: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the main burden of these dangerous inflationary increases is already falling on those who are least able to bear them?

Sir G. Howe: The burden of inflationary increases bears harshly on every section of the community, including those who are seeking to work and to stay in employment. That is why we regard the battle against inflation as the central part of the Government's policy. I shall be grateful for the hon. and learned Gentleman's support in that task.

Mr. John Townend: To what extent does my right hon. and learned Friend consider that the increases are due to the explosion in public sector pay last

winter? To what extent does he feel that the infamous Proffesor Clegg is responsible? Has he any plans to do away with Proffesor Clegg?

Sir G. Howe: I know that some of my hon. Friends are anxious to lay a good many things at the door of Professor Clegg, who has probably collected more epithets than most other professors in the past few weeks. I agree with my hon. Friend that one of the factors contributing to the accelerating rate of inflation that we inherited is the way in which the incomes policy adopted by the Labour Government collapsed so manifestly during last winter.

Mr. Healey: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is extraordinary if he regards what happened in the last pay round as the collapse of an incomes policy when the Prime Minister has welcomed a 20 per cent. settlement in an industry where productivity has increased by only ½ per cent. in the past 12 months as a triumph for free collective bargaining? Does he continue to claim that the 6 per cent. increase in the RPI that has been generated by his actions since the general election is a once-and for-all increase?

Sir G. Howe: The right hon. Gentleman once again seeks to overlook the fact that increases in the RPI resulting from the switch from direct to indirect taxation are once-and-for-all. I do not think that anyone would claim that any settlement of 20peroent. is in line with our much lower rate of growth and productivity. It is my assertion—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give the Government his support in this respect—that the attempt to achieve over a prolonged period sustained reductions in the overall level of pay bargaining by means of a constraining statutory or semi-statutory incomes policy has not been seen to be successful. It inevitably results in an explosion of pay settlements of the sort that we have seen in the past 12 months.

Mr. Healey: The right hon. and learned Gentleman invited me to agree with him. In fact I disagree totally. These levels of pay increases under the Government, incited by an increase in the cost of living of 6 per cent. that has been generated by their fiscal action, proves that the fatuous idea of the right hon. and


learned Gentleman—that if the Government increase the cost of living by 6 per cent. working men will make no attempt to compensate for that—is completely at variance with the whole of experience.

Mr. Marland: Question.

Sir G. Howe: Distilling, as best I may, a question from a series of observations, I must say that the right hon. Gentleman does little credit to himself and his reputation if he fails to recognise from his own experience the way in which the ending of a period of tight income restraint under an incomes policy inevitably leads to the difficulties of a pay explosion. I should welcome the support that he should be offering to us as a result of his rather battered experience.

Mr. Adley: As we have had two supplementary questions from the author of Britain's problems, will my right hon. and learned Friend indicate how long he thinks it will be before his policies begin to overcome the damage done to the nation by the Labour Government?

Sir G. Howe: My hon. Friend overrates the importance of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). Although the right hon. Gentleman was the author of a great deal of disaster he should not be regarded as having produced disaster single-handed. As we have said many times, the conquest of our deep-seated economic problems, which in our manifesto we described as the most serious at any time since the war, is bound to take a substantial time. I hope that signs of progress will begin to appear quite shortly.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: In view of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's answer about wage bargaining, will he confirm that he is not asking trade unionists to accept a cut in their living standards by negotiating settlements that are less than the rise in the index?

Sir G. Howe: I am glad to have the opportunity to address myself to that question. The hon. Gentleman will realise that probably up to 2¾ per cent. of the increase in prices that has taken place in the past 12 months is attributable to the huge increase in oil prices during that period. He must recognise that no Government can protect the pub-

lic from the consequences of that sort of increase on their standard of living. The Government do not suggest that pay bargaining should be undertaken with a view to securing protection against this or that increase in the retail prices index. It must be undertaken by reference to the extent to which the employers' organisation can afford a given pay increase. I am very glad indeed to see a much wider acceptance of the reality that is necessary to accept the case for a much wider spread of pay settlements.

Industrial Investment

Mr. Straw asked: 11. Mr. Straw asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what policies he has for stimulating industrial investment in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Biffen: The prospects for industrial investment depend on reducing inflation, which undermines business confidence and adversely affects profitability. Overcoming inflation is the Government's first priority. We have also taken measures to improve financial rewards for enterprise.

Mr. Straw: As the Government's record has been one of increasing inflation, is it not the case that over the next two years we shall see increasing redundancies, the destruction of many sectors of our manufacturing industry, and a rising number of bankruptcies among small businesses? Does the Chief Secretary have any evidence to support his optimism about the future of the manufacturing sector in this country?

Mr. Biffen: I am not usually accused of being optimistic. There is no doubt, on the basis of most forecasts, including that from within the Treasury, that the next 12 months or so will be a period of at least mild recession. That is bound to take its toll.

Mr. Chapman: With the possible exception of increasing the tax depreciation on investment in industrial buildings, would my right hon. Friend accept that the greatest stimulus that could be given to industrial buildings would come about by minimising the bureaucracy on planning and the interpretation and application of building and other regulations? Would he have a word with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment about these important matters?

Mr. Biffen: I shall certainly draw my hon. Friend's question to the attention of my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: As the Chief Secretary points to more and more distant horizons for the achievement of his objectives, will he bear in mind that he stated in his White Paper for 1980–81 that one of his three central objectives was to restore incentives? In what way does he now expect to restore any incentives in 1980–81?

Mr. Biffen: By the emphasis in our policies on the virtues of price and profit.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: How does the Chief Secretary square the statement made by his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor in the debate on his first Budget that he was creating an opportunity State with the fact that every single action of the Government has damaged employment prospects—and damaged them most seriously in the North-West and on Merseyside? When will the Government create the opportunities for my constituents to find work?

Mr. Biffen: I simply cannot accept the premise in the hon. Gentleman's question. If public spending were the premise for increased employment, the North-West should now be prospering

Share Ownership

Mr. Hordern: 12. Mr. Hordern asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposals he has to encourage the wider ownership of shares.

Mr. Biffen: It remains our intention, as we made clear in our election manifesto, to encourage employee share ownership and to ensure that our tax policies generally will provide incentives to save and build up capital. We are examining possible methods of achieving these aims.

Mr. Hordern: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the wider ownership of shares goes much further than employee share-ownership? Does he also agree that the wider ownership of shares is just as important a part in forming a property-owning democracy as is the ability of a tenant to buy a council house? Will he look with particular interest at the schemes that are practised in France, and the other proposals which

have been put to him? Will he urge his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor to bring forward suitable proposals in his Budget Statement?

Mr. Biffen: I agree with my hon. Friend that the concept of industrial democracy must extend to the widest possible spread of share ownership. Like him, I have noted with interest the experience in France from the loi Monory. All those and other relevant considerations will be taken into account by my right hon. and learned Friend when he frames his Budget.

Mr. Robert Hughes: As the record level of minimum lending rate has led to a remarkably high level of mortgage interest and as an average borrower of, say, £8,000, has to find an additional £1 for every working day, can the right hon. Gentleman say where people will obtain the money with which to purchase shares?

Mr. Biffen: That raises more general topics on the economy which were debated yesterday. I do not think that they arise from the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham and Crawley (Mr. Hordern).

Money Supply

Mr. Budgen: 13. Mr. Budgen asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will now publish the medium term targets for the money supply.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: As I said to the House on 8 November, I am currently considering whether there would be advantage in formulating more precisely our longer term monetary objectives, which I reaffirmed in my statement on 15 November.

Mr. Budgen: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the great advantage of publishing these targets, at least in brackets, would be to make it plain to the whole nation that even if the Government wanted to execute a U-turn, once those targets had been published, they could not do so?

Sir G. Howe: I am glad to endorse the entirely hypothetical nature of my hon. Friend's question, as no such contemplation is in our mind. I agree with him that there are certainly powerful arguments to be advanced in favour of publishing


targets in that way. I have not excluded those arguments from my consideration.

Mr. Horam: As the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not publish medium term targets for money supply and as he is apparently already reconsidering the public expenditure plans that we discussed only yesterday may I ask what has happened to the attempt to abandon the fine tuning of the economy?

Sir G. Howe: The hon. Gentleman must misunderstand the context in which the phrase "fine tuning" has developed. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) does not make his own comprehension of the position any better by laughing at it.
The case for considering monetary targets over a period of time, as suggested by my hon. Friend, is designed precisely to make less likely fine tuning of the kind that this Administration have, in any event, discarded.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, whether or not we publish long-term monetary targets, the achievement of a gradual and steady contraction in the rate of growth in the money supply, without exorbitant interest rates, is dependent on a continuing, gradual decline, year by year, in the money size of the public sector borrowing requirement?

Sir G. Howe: I endorse my hon. Friend's restatement of the objective I set in my Budget speech, namely the reduction from year to year of the rate of growth of the money supply. I also endorse, within that, the objective of securing a reduction in the size of the public sector borrowing requirement. Whether that should follow the same smooth and steady downward path as the reduction of the money supply is a matter for consideration.

Middle East

Mr. David Price: 14. Mr. David Price asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what action he proposes to take, both nationally and in conjunction with the Finance Ministers of other member States of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, to diminish the adverse economic effects of a deteriorating situation in the Middle East.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am in frequent contact with by counterparts abroad on the economic implications of events in the Middle East. I had the opportunity last week to meet the United States Treasury Secretary, Mr. Miller, after his visit there.

Mr. Price: Does my right hon and learned Friend agree that the Middle East position suggests at the moment a rapid increase in the OPEC price of oil and increasing political instability? Does he further agree that if action is not taken, both at home and abroad with our allies in the OECD, such a situation could be detrimental to our economic prospects?

Sir G. Howe: There are certainly factors, both economic and political, of the kind my hon. Friend described, which make it necessary for us to remain in the closest possible contact with our friends and economic partners around the world.

Lending Rates

Mr. Ioan Evans: 16. Mr. Ioan Evans asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what international action is proposed to seek to reduce lending rates.

Mr. Biffen: It became clear at the IMF's annual meeting in Belgrade in October that there is now widespread international agreement on the central importance of reducing inflation and the need to adopt policies to achieve this. As these policies take effect, I would expect to see generally lower interest rates.

Mr. Evans: As the Government have increased MLR from 12 per cent. to 17 per cent., which is now a record high, will not they enter into discussions with other Governments to obtain general reduction in rates rather than competing with each other in putting up their rates, with this Government leading the way?

Mr. Biffen: I think that the hon. Gentleman will have to recognise that most of the countries in the Western world are seeking to contain the problems of inflation by essentially monetary means. Therefore there is, to some extent, bound to be a degree of competition between interest rates.

Mr. Tapsell: Before we embark on the extremely important task of international co-operation in these matters, will my right hon. Friend say what steps have


been taken to investigate the reasons for the misleading advice which, presumably, Ministers received about the growth of the monetary aggregates in the October banking month? Do the Government aim to make their policies less dependent on these inherently unreliable forecasts?

Mr. Biffen: Neither the Chancellor nor I would seek to hide behind the shield of claiming that we had been badly advised. Advice was given in good faith and we acted on it. We stand by our actions.

Mr. Robert Sheldon: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall the promises made at the last general election to the small business? Is he aware that, whatever he does for the small business from now on, or whatever he has done for it in the past, will by no means compensate for the disasters that will be caused by the 17 per cent. minimum lending rate and the restrictive practices that he is now pursuing?

Mr. Biffen: I am well aware that high interest rates adversely affect the small business sector of the community possibly more than any other. That is one reason why we are determined to pursue our policies to ensure that there can be a reduction from the present levels as early as possible. We shall not prejudice our policy by panic and premature movement.

Mr. Body: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the more Governments around the world tend to borrow rather than tax, the more will interest rates tend to rise?

Mr. Biffen: That is a fair point.

Mr. Healey: Is it not the case that the reason why the original estimates of what would happen to the money supply have proved mistaken was that private bank lending to the private sector was not diminished by the 14 per cent. minimum lending rate introduced by the Government in June? There is no reason to believe that the 17 per cent. MLR will produce the necessary effect on private bank lending. That is borne out by the experience of other countries. Is it not the case that this Government, like others, will be compelled to resort to direct control of bank lending, as the United States is already doing to some

degree and as France has done for a long time?

Mr. Biffen: Of course, time will reveal whether the confident assertions of the right hon. Gentleman will be validated. He argued earlier this afternoon that a severe recession is impending. It would be extraordinary if that did not have some impact on private bank lending.

West Germany (Finance Minister)

Mr. Leighton: 17. Mr. Leighton asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects to meet his West German counterpart.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I meet my West German counterpart regularly at EEC Finance Councils and at the twice-yearly bilateral consultations with the German Government. I expect to see him next at the Finance Council on 17 December.

Mr. Leighton: When the right hon. and learned Gentleman next meets his counterpart, will he take up with him the exorbitant cost of running the British Army of the Rhine? Is he aware that it now costs well over £1 billion per annum? I understand that if the troops were kept in this country we would still have to pay for them. However, does he not agree that it is worrying that the foreign exchange costs are about £600 billion to £700 billion per annum, which is equivalent to a loss of exports of £700 billion? The Germans are well able to pay—we are not. If they are not prepared to offset those costs, does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that we should consider bringing the troops back to Britain?

Sir G. Howe: I would not consider the remedy suggested by the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, we have no plans for raising the question of offset with the German Government. I agree that the burden of defence costs arising outside the United Kingdom is considerable. It is another substantial reason for wishing to end the inequitable burden of our net contribution to the Community.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Since the Germans have an economic structure similar to ours and a similar population but no oil, a gross national product two and a half times greater than ours and higher productivity per head in steel, coal and so on, will my right hon. and learned Friend emulate the German practice of a free


market economy—even one run by Socialist Ministers?

Sir G. Howe: Many aspects of the West German economy and the way that it is managed give us cause for admiration. Perhaps the most fortunate aspect of the German political system is that its Social Democratic Party has acquired so much more wisdom than ours.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: In answer to a question from the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Price), the Chancellor said that we must have regular consultations with our economic friends and allies. Will he tell me who are our economic friends and allies? Are they our EEC partners?

Sir G. Howe: Our economic friends and allies include our partners in the Community, certainly, but they include all those who share our interest in the effective operation of liberal economies in the free world.

National Savings Certificates

Mr. Chapman: 18. Mr. Chapman asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects to complete his review of the types and conditions of issue of national savings certificates.

Mr. Peter Rees: The terms and conditions of all National Savings instruments were reviewed recently. Following this review, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary announced to the House on 15 November the introduction of a new nineteenth issue of national savings certificates and an increase in the maximum holdings limit for retirement issue certificates from £700 to £1,200.

Mr. Chapman: I welcome, particularly, the increase to £1,200 in the maximum holding of the retirement issue national savings certificates. However, will my hon. and learned Friend look sympathetically at the proposal that men between the ages of 60 and 64should also be allowed to secure that special issue, to avoid incurring any charge of sex discrimination?

Mr. Rees: I have noted the views that my hon. Friend expressed on 8 November in his question. The House will appreciate that the national retirement age provides a convenient and readily understood qualifying condition. In view

of that, and the wide range of national savings facilities that are available, we believe, for the time being at least, that the present age qualification for men should remain as it is. I assure the House and my hon. Friend that, as with all other terms of national savings, the matter will be kept under review.

PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

Mr. Budgen: Q1. Mr. Budgen asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 6 December.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be having further meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. Later today, I shall be meeting the Prime Minister of the Netherlands and, this evening, I shall give a dinner for him.

Mr. Budgen: Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that a reduction of up to 15 per cent. in the number of immigrants from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan cannot properly be described as an end to immigration as we have known it since the war? Will she take the opportunity today to make a statement in which she gives her personal undertaking that legislative time will be found in the next Session of Parliament to introduce both a register and a British nationality Bill?

The Prime Minister: I cannot give an undertaking about legislation in the next Session because we do not know what the pressures on legislation will be. The only decision that has been taken about the register and a quota, both of which would require substantive legislation, was not to introduce a Bill in this Session but to proceed by order to undertake those matters which could proceed more rapidly.

Mr. Bidwell: Will the right hon. Lady, when she has time, ponder on the fact that many of her more enlightened hon. Friends refused to vote in the recent proposals on immigration? Will she take great heed of that fact, because many people in Europe, particularly in the EEC, will find it a little queer that our first woman Prime Minister has made proposals for discrimination against her own


sex—that is, the women in this country who have received settlement rights?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman forgets that the vast majority of my enlightened hon. Friends fully supported the Government in carrying out the proposals which were foreshadowed in the manifesto.

Mr. Graham Page: Has my right hon. Friend read the report in the press today of the comment by Mr. Scargill that secret ballots are a subtle interference with unions? Will she take pleasure in expressing at a public meeting today her pleasure in the result of the subtle interference with the miners and with British Leyland?

The Prime Minister: As my right hon. Friend knows, we are very much in favour of secret ballots. I believe that they are the only way of properly revealing what the work force wants. We were delighted with the result of the miners' secret ballot, in that it rejected industrial action.

Mr. James Lamond: Does the right hon. Lady believe that it is right that her representatives should go to Brussels next week to take a decision about nuclear missiles before the matter has been discussed in this Parliament? Is she aware that we are one of the few western European countries in NATO who have not discussed the matter? Therefore, does she agree that her representative will go representing only the Tory Party and not Britain as a whole?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend goes to Brussels representing the Government, who had a majority from the people of Britain as a whole at the last election.

Dr. Mawhinney: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, although most of us agree with more open government, we do not mean by that leaks of confidential minutes from Cabinet Committees, including those chaired by my right hon. Friend, such as have appeared in The Guardian today? Can my right hon. Friend say what steps are being taken to find those who are leaking confidential minutes and will she assure us that when those people are discovered, whether they are in government or the Civil Service, they will be fired, not for

their political views, but because of their unfitness for office?

The Prime Minister: There was a leak and there will, of course, be the customary leak inquiry. [Laughter.] I believe that it is only the second leak of Cabinet papers in recent times. The first, which was serious, took place under the previous Government. This is the first leak under the present Government. There will be a leak inquiry because it is extremely serious if Cabinet or Cabinet committee minutes find their way on to the front pages of newspapers. One cannot carry on government on that basis. We had better wait and see what the inquiry discovers.

Mr. Dormand: Q2. Mr. Dormand asked the Prime Minister, if she will list her official engagements for 6 December.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I have just given.

Mr. Dormand: Will the Prime Minister take the necessary action today to stop the importing of coking coal? Is it not a crazy system that this island, which is virtually made of coal, imports millions of tons of the stuff, which is threatening the jobs of thousands, not only in my part of the country? If the Prime Minister is so concerned about the financial aspects of the matter, what does she have to say about the fact that our coal industry receives a subsidy of 94p per ton, compared with subsidies in EEC countries ranging from £14 to £24 per ton? Is that not manifestly unfair, not only to our coal industry, but to our steel industry?

The Prime Minister: The load in question came from the United States on a Greek ship. I will not interfere in the argument between the National Coal Board and the British Steel Corporation. I understand that the Wales TUC is trying to get people together and that Mr. Len Murray is intervening.
There is a problem for both industries. It is understood that the miners naturally wish to sell as much coke as they can, but it is important to the future of the steel industry and the jobs init that that industry is able to get coke at as reasonable a price as it can.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I understand that my right hon. Friend expressed yesterday a certain amount of pleasure, and no doubt relief, at the fact that the miners had settled their pay claim as a result of their ballot. Will she make clear to other groups in the public sector, professional and otherwise, that they will not be justified in asking for a similar rise, as they did in 1974?

The Prime Minister: I make no comment on the level of the settlement, though there was a cogent comment in today's Daily Mirror about the level, which undoubtedly could not be sustained in other industries. The pleasure that we felt was that the ballot showed that people did not wish to pursue industrial action.

Mr. Dalyell: Will the Prime Minister undertake to ask the Dutch Prime Minister about a leak that was infinitely more far reaching than any leak of Cabinet papers? I refer to the leak of crucial nuclear secrets from the centrifuge project at Almelo. Will the right hon. Lady ask the Dutch Prime Minister how that situation occurred, since it is arguably more damaging to peace in the world than anything done by the Rosen-bergs or any other atom spies?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman knows that we have already made protests about this matter, which involved a person who had been working at that plant of Uren co on enriched uranium and the centrifuge process and then went to work in Pakistan, where we are trying to see that there is not proliferation of production of nuclear materials or any nuclear weapons. The matter is not on the agenda, but I shall reinforce the protest that we have already made.

Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Has my right hon. Friend noted the growing spate of truly horrific murders? Does she agree that there are many who have lost their lives in those dreadful crimes so that hon. Members can keep their consciences? Does she agree that if we had a referendum on the return of the death penalty, the great majority of our people would vote overwhelmingly for its return?

The Prime Minister: We were all horrified at a particular recent case, but, as my hon. Friend knows, the question

whether there should be a return of capital punishment was dealt with in a debate in the House earlier this Session.

Mr. Skinner: Q3. Mr. Skinner asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 6 December.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave earlier.

Mr. Skinner: Does the Prime Minister recall that last week she referred in strident tones to the callous disregard for humanity shown by those who were allegedly threatening to close Charing Cross hospital? Will she now, in loud and clear tones, repeat that to the Tory health authorities and Tory councils up and down the country which are threatening the closure of wards and hospitals, including the Lang with Lodge diabetic hospital near my constituency? If she fails to do that, she can be properly accused by hospital patients and millions of others of operating double standards.

The Prime Minister: I am delighted to know that we shall have the hon. Gentleman's support when we introduce a Bill to reduce administration in the National Health Service. I shall tell all health authorities that it is far better for them to reduce administration than services to the public.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Will the Prime Minister lend her great authority and influence to an initiative designed to save life in Rhodesia? In the period between the signing of the ceasefire and its implementation, will she use all the communications media available to her Government to suggest that there is no excuse for either side to carry loaded weapons?

The Prime Minister: It is far better to leave any further statement to the negotiations at Lancaster House. As my hon. Friend knows, we had hoped that there would be a ceasefire on all sides at the beginning of those talks. There was not, but I believe that we are near to one now. I think that it is best to leave the negotiations to the negotiators there who have already been so brilliantly successful.

Mr. Spriggs: Has the Prime Minister received any correspondence about the Providence hospital in St. Helens? If


so, would she care to make a statement about the position there?

The Prime Minister: We get at least 11,000 letters coming in to my office each week. Before making any statement about the matter to which the hon. Gentleman refers, I prefer to consider it carefully.

Mr. Tapsell: Has my right hon. Friend noted that a distinguished American has said that our noble Friend Lord Carrington ought to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?

The Prime Minister: I have not seen that suggestion, but I am pleased to add "And so say all of us."

Mr. Leighton: Q4. Mr. Leighton asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 6 December.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave earlier.

Mr. Leighton: Is the Prime Minister worried about the way in which the country is being swamped by imports, particularly of manufactured goods and particularly from the original EEC Six with which we have a horrendous deficit of £4,000 million this year, leading to factory closures and mass unemployment? Will she read carefully the speech made last night by her hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark), who advocated import controls? Unless we have import controls, as part of an economic package, we shall have an industrial desert in Britain.

The Prime Minister: I am obviously worried about the amounts of imports and particularly the latest figures about the degree to which foreign cars are penetrating our home market. That means that there is a tremendous opportunity for car firms here to increase their output, because the market and the demand are here and our car firms must take advantage of that opportunity. I must be absolutely frank with the hon. Gentleman. We are against import controls. This country could not survive without considerable manufacturing exports. I believe that if we were to put on import controls, our export trade would be extremely badly hit.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Freud: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I reminded the House yesterday that I prefer to take points of order at the end of statements. I understand that the hon. Gentleman's point of order is likely to arise out of what happened at Question Time and therefore I will take it now. Mr. Freud.

Mr. Freud: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I believe that the House has always cared deeply about the honour and the integrity of individual Members of Parliament. I know that you, Mr. Speaker, have always upheld this. During Question Time, I pointed out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the disparity between the interest rate for premium bonds and the minimum lending rate was now 12 per cent. and asked whether it was not immoral to go on advertising premium bonds to the public without advising the public of the dangers, or certainly of the poor investment prospects. The Chancellor replied "I do not wish to cross swords with the hon. Gentleman on the subject of immorality."
You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that I asked the Chancellor to explain what he meant. He said that he was surprised and astonished that anyone should be sensitive to that accusation.

Mr. Skinner: He is so dull himself, he does not realise that other people are sensitive.

Mr. Freud: I believe that it was a personal slur. I should be happy, Mr. Speaker, to accept an apology or to cross swords with the Chancellor.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Geoffrey Howe): The hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) has a reputation for integrity which stands very high—at least as high as his reputation as a humorist. If any light-hearted political observation of mine cast any kind of doubt or shadow whatever on his personal integrity, I am as happy to withdraw that as I am to pay tribute to him in every other respect.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Speaker: Business Question.

Mr. James Callaghan: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week?

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): The business for next week will be as follows:

MONDAY 10 DECEMBER—Private Members' motions until 7 o'clock.

Second Reading of the Petroleum Revenue Tax Bill.

Motion on the European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Multilateral Trade Negotiations) Order.

TUESDAY 11 DECEMBER—Motions on the following Northern Ireland orders—

Emergency Provisions (Continuance) (No. 2)

Appropriation (No. 3)

Mineral Exploration

Control of Food Premises

Perjury

Representation of the People (Amendment)

WEDNESDAY 12 DECEMBER—Proceedings on the Zimbabwe Independence Bill.

Motion on the Southern Rhodesia Constitution (Interim Provisions) Order.

THURSDAY 13 DECEMBER—Supply [8th Allotted Day]. Debate on a topic to be announced. The House will be asked to agree the Civil and Defence Votes on Account and the winter Supplementary Estimates.

Motions on the Social Security (Contributions Re-Rating) Order and on the Representation of the People (Amendment) Orders.

FRIDAY 14 DECEMBER—Private Members' motions.

MONDAY 17 DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Employment Bill.

Mr. Callaghan: With regard to Wednesday's business and the proceedings on the Zimbabwe Independence Bill, we are very glad to see the progress that is being made in this connection. Tribute is due to the Foreign Secretary, and, of course, to all the other people who have

taken part in the negotiations. In adding that, I do not wish to detract from anything I have said about the Foreign Secretary.
We have not yet seen the Bill and we shall want to look at it pretty closely, although there will be no attempt to obstruct it—unless we are really satisfied that there is something seriously wrong with it. I hope—indeed, I am sure—that there will not be. We have not pressed the Government for a statement on Zimbabwe because of the delicate nature of the negotiations, but I think that we are now getting to the stage at which we need to ask the Government to give us a statement, either on Monday or Tuesday next week, before the Bill is brought in so that we may have time to consider the Government's attitude to it as well as the details of the Bill.
Since I raised the matter of the Local Government Planning and Land Bill last week, we have seen the Bill. It is formidable, running to nearly 300 pages. It deals with matters which clearly ought first to be the property of this House. I ask the Leader of the House whether he has had time to reconsider the decision that lie announced last week.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Following the right hon. Gentleman's remarks at business question time last week and the formal representations made to me by the Shadow Leader of the House, the Government have decided not to proceed with the Local Government, Planning and Land Bill in another place. A similar Bill will be introduced into this House in due course. As Leader of the House, I am always concerned to accommodate the wishes of hon. Members, from whichever part of the House those wishes may be expressed.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his tribute to my right hon. and noble Friend the Foreign Secretary. I thank him also for the co-operation that the Government have received in making arrangements for the debate next week on the Zimbabwe Independence Bill. I shall pass on the request for a statement to my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. The Bill will be published later today.

Mr. Callaghan: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for meeting the representations that we made. I am sure that it


is for the convenience of relations between the two Houses that the Local Government Planning and Land Bill should start here and be considered here in the first place.
I say finally to the right hon. Gentleman—he will not get many more bouquets from me, I promise him—that there is still joy in Heaven when one sinner repenteth.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that this is a Supply day and that we are to have two truncated debates. It is hoped to take the vote on the first of them at 7 pm. There is also a statement to follow business questions. In view of this, I am proposing to spend less on business questions today, in the interests of the House as a whole.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Will my right hon. Friend make clear to the House that, despite what he has announced today, it was perfectly proper to introduce the Local Government Planning and Land Bill into the Lords, pursuant to Standing Order No. 58A, which was accepted unanimously by the House on 8 August 1972, and on the recommendation, on behalf of the Labour Party, of Lord Houghton?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I agree with that declaration of principle, but in this House we have to go on practice and on the expression of feeling. If there is a very strong feeling that is reasonably based from a part of the House, I must take that into account. That is what I have done.

Mr. Coleman: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of the serious situation in the steel industry in South Wales, where thousands of people will be losing their livelihood. He will be aware of the representations that have been made to have the subject debated in the Welsh Grand Committee next Wednesday. Will he say whether we can have an early debate on this subject on the Floor of the House?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: It would be more appropriate to have a debate on the Floor of the House on this matter before it is discussed in the Welsh Grand Com-

mittee. I shall consider the matter, but we are now very short of time.

Mr. Latham: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the State of Israel has many friends on both sides of the House? In view of the disturbing reports in today's newspapers, will he get a Foreign Office Minister to confirm next week that there has been no change in Government policy towards the PLO?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: There has certainly been no change in Government policy towards the PLO. The purpose of our policy in that part of the Middle East is to bring peace.

Mr. Grimond: Will the Leader of the House arrange for a general debate on fishing, particularly on the progress of negotiations on a common fisheries policy, as soon as possible, and at any rate early in the new year?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: That is an important point, but I cannot promise a debate. I think that a statement is the most appropriate way to deal with that sort of point.

Mr. Mark Hughes: Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for an early statement to be made either in this House or in another place on the death overnight of a constituent of mine, Mr. George Wilkinson, who was in prison in Walton, Liverpool?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I fully understand the hon. Gentleman's concern in regard to this case, and I shall pass his request on to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: My right hon. Friend will be aware that my request for a debate on microelectronics has been strengthened by the motion that appeared on the Order Paper yesterday morning. He will also be aware, as are many other hon. Members, that recently there has been some difficulty over the delivery of the Vote.
By way of bringing those two subjects together, may I point out that my right hon. Friend and others may be interested to learn that the Order Paper for Tuesday is illustrated on Tele text in the microelectronics exhibition upstairs? I hope that that will help him to make up his mind.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I should very much like to accommodate my hon. Friend if I possibly could. However, if he continues to raise this question during business questions, we shall perhaps have had the equivalent of a debate by the time of the recess. As to the printing of parliamentary papers, I have looked into that matter. There is an acute staff shortage, and that is the root of the difficulty.

Dr. David Clark: Has the Leader of the House seen the proposals of British Shipbuilders in relation to shiprepairing activities by which it plans to axe 500 jobs on the Tyne, the majority of which will fall on my constituency, where already one man in six is without work? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Minister responsible declines to come to the House to make a statement? Will he prevail upon the Minister, because we are a little tired of his Pontius Pilate attitude on this issue?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall certainly put the hon. Gentleman's point to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Alexander: Has my right hon. Friend had drawn to his attention early-day motion 241, dealing with the proposed sale of the Laxton estate?
[That this House requests Her Majesty's Government not to sell Laxton Estate because it is the only remaining example of the mediaeval three-field system left in the United Kingdom; and requests Her Majesty's Governtnent not to end this unique example of the way of life of mediaeval England for purely commercial reasons.]
Bearing in mind that the motion is signed by hon. Members from both the Labour and Liberal Parties, will he find time for a debate on the subject?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has said in a recent written reply, the sale of this estate is included in the programme of land sales which form part of the Government's recently announced expenditure plans for 1980–81. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food regards this sale as a special case. Any purchaser will be required to give the necessary assurances about the continuation of the ancient

open field system and the welfare of the tenants.

Mr. Roy Hughes: With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's inconclusive reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Coleman) about the need for a steel industry debate, will he bear in mind that many thousands of redundancies will now be created in the steel industry and that they will affect steel communities very badly indeed? Bearing in mind that most of those redundancies are a direct result of Government policy, does he not think that the Government are now duty bound to grant an early debate on the subject?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: The decision about closures is not a matter for the Government. It is a matter for the British Steel Corporation. I shall certainly discuss with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales the important matter which the hon. Gentleman has raised.

Mr. Henderson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that tens of thousands of public sector tenants in Scotland are eagerly awaiting the passage of the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Bill which was published yesterday? Will he arrange for the Second Reading of that Bill at the earliest possible date?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I hope that we will make good progress with that important Bill.

Mr. William Hamilton: Will the right hon. Gentleman investigate the way in which proceedings in the Committee on the Abortion (Amendment) Bill are being conducted? Is he aware that yesterday there was all-party resentment at the continued absence of the Minister for Health. The result was that yesterday the Bill's sponsor had to adjourn the sitting until next Wednesday, when the Minister will be able to attend. Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that that is intolerable, and will he consult the Prime Minister to ensure that the prime importance attached to the House of Commons overrides every other engagement outside?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall, of course, look into the matter, but not too closely because I understand that the reason for my hon. Friend's absence is that he has mumps.

Mr. Hamilton: Mr. Hamilton rose—

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am sorry, I misled the hon. Gentleman. It is the sponsor of the Bill who has mumps.

Mr. Hamilton: That is not true either.

Mr. Stoddart: In view of the Prime Minister's traumatic experience at Dublin last weekend, and in the light of the undoubted seven-year itch of the British electorate with regard to separation from the EEC, will the right hon. Gentleman persuade his colleagues to publish a White Paper showing a cost-benefit analysis of Britain's membership of the Community, even if that shows all cost and no benefit?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I do not think that it is necessary to publish such a White Paper. I thought that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister managed to combine commitment to the Community with championing of the British interest, which was admirable.

Mr. Temple-Morris: With respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham), there is a lot more to our foreign policy than whether or not we speak to the PLO. Once we have got over Rhodesia, and bearing in mind that that will go on for some time yet, will my right hon. Friend at least bear in mind that there is a vital foreign affairs debate to be had upon the Middle East and our oil supplies?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I certainly agree that there are a number of foreign affairs topics that need discussion. However, we now have very little time before the recess.
I should tell the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) that I shall look into the matter he has raised and find out exactly what has gone wrong on the Committee.

Mr. English: Three weeks ago the right hon. Gentleman said that he hoped that next week—that is, two weeks ago—we would have a liaison committee of the representatives of all the Select Committees of the House. These Committees are now in existence and must now appoint their staffs and organise themselves, yet the body that is supposed to assist them has not yet been created. When will that be done?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am well aware of my obligation both to the House and to the hon. Gentleman, who tabled an amendment on the subject. I hope that I shall be able to satisfy him by tabling a motion later today.

Mr. Leadbitter: Will the Leader of the House reconsider his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport (Mr. Hughes)? Does he not recognise that it is Government policy, and their cash limits and their determination that British Steel should break even in 1980 that are causing great concern to a large number of communities? The House would welcome an opportunity to debate the serious social consequences of the closures. Will he not reconsider his answer?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I cannot reconsider the factual part of my answer, because it is the British Steel Corporation that has the responsibility. However, I shall bring to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the real anxieties that have been expressed by Welsh Members and others.

Mr. Robert Atkins: Will my right hon. Friend investigate the reports abounding in the press today regarding a certain amount of swapping of punches in the Lobbies last night, and will he consider referring this matter in order to pour oil upon troubled waters?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I have enough troubles of my own without interfering in those of other people.

Mr. Rooker: Has the Leader of the House had time to look at early-day motion 261 on the subject of privilege and the conduct of the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Benyon)?
[That this House believes that the conduct of the honourable Member for Abingdon in respect of inquiries he made of the Chairman of the Secretaries Council as to whether she had information about the honourable Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr, should be referred to the Committee of Privileges, on the grounds that such inquiries amount to an attempt to intimidate an honourable Member in his pursuit of a legitimate Parliamentary inquiry which, if established, would amount to a gross contempt of this House.]
Will he give an undertaking this afternoon that he will study this matter and give the House an early opportunity to decide whether it should go before the Committee of Privileges?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I have seen the motion, but, as the hon. Gentleman will know, questions of privilege, or breach of privilege and so on, are not for me. Under the rules of the House such matters are for Mr. Speaker, and I understand that he has considered the matter.

Mr. Dewar: Has the Leader of the House seen the item in The Scotsman today reporting an allegation that the Solicitor-General for Scotland misled the Scottish Grand Committee about the terms of reference to the Cowie committee on divorce in Scotland, and in particular about whether that committee was considering the abolition of corroboration and legal aid in undefended divorce cases? As this is a matter of public anxiety in Scotland because of the great expense of divorce actions, will the right hon. Gentleman prevail upon the Solicitor-General for Scotland to make a clarifying statement in the House next week?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I have seen the report and studied it. Having studied it, I found that it was by no means clear to me what had happened. I will take up the matter with my colleague to see whether any further action needs to be taken.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will call the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) and the four other hon. Members who have been standing.

Mr. Cryer: Does not the Leader of the House think it scandalous that on 12 December important decisions relating to nuclear weapons in this country are to be taken without any debate whatever in the House? Alone among European countries this House has been denied an opportunity for debate. Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that a debate should have been brought into the House in view of early-day motion 202–
[That this House opposes any further proliferation of nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom or elsewhere; and recognises that only by the ending of nuclear

arms production, retention and deployment can mankind survive accidental or intentional use of these horrific weapons.]—
and a further early-day motion, No. 252, that quotes the remarks of the late Lord Mountbatten:
Wars cannot be fought with nuclear weapons. Their existence only adds to our perils because of the illusions which they have generated"?
Will our representative take that message to the meeting on 12 December?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I have seen the early-day motion, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman on the importance of policy on nuclear arms of all kinds. I have not been able to find time before Christmas for a debate, but perhaps this is a subject that might be raised on a Supply day.

Mr. Cryer: It is a Government representative that is going to the meeting.

Mr. Kilfedder: Is it fair to the Ulster people that a number of Northern Ireland orders should have been lumped together on one day? Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the matter so that proper time is given to debating two of the orders that are vital?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I have done my best to be fair to Northern Ireland Members by giving a full day, during what I may call prime time, to the discussion of Northern Ireland affairs. I understand that the debate on the first two topics will go on until 11.30 pm. After that there will be four motions, one of which concerns the consolidating measure and there will be opportunity for full discussion. So I have done all that I can to help hon. Members from the Province of Ulster.

Mr. John Evans: In view of the remarkable leak in The Guardian today that indicates that the Cabinet is determined to go ahead with an American pressurised water reactor and the grave danger of serious public reaction to that policy, will the Leader of the House make arrangements for an early debate on our nuclear ordering policy?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: We cannot run our affairs in the House on the basis of leaks that appear on various topics in The Guardian. I do not know whether a debate is possible, but I shall put it to


my right hon. Friend that perhaps a suitable means of clearing up any doubt would be by means of a statement on policy.

Mr. Anderson: Will the Leader of the House confirm that there is no technical reason why the meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee on Wednesday next should not discuss the crisis in the steel industry, and that the reason that there will not be a change of subject is that the Government are unwilling to have a debate at that time?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not out of order for comment to be made in this House on the proceedings of a Committee that has not reported?

Hon. Members: The Committee has not yet met.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I was just about to say the same thing myself. This House decides the topic for the Committee by resolution, which we have done. Therefore, it was not out of order for the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) to raise the question.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: As I said, I will raise this matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales.

Mr. Edward Lyons: In view of the imminent closure of most of the departments of Associated Weavers Carpets factory at Bradford—the largest, by

volume of production, of any in the United Kingdom—by the United States company Champion of Connecticut simply on the basis that that company can sell off the factory premises as warehouses for millions of pounds when the factory itself is perfectly viable, will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Secretary of State for Industry to make a statement about the principle underlying that closure and what he proposes to do to save the 850 jobs and the factory?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall look into the matter for the hon. and learned Gentleman, and I shall ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to write to him about it.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Tom Ellis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the Prime Minister is present, I wonder whether I can raise a point of order with you about something that the right hon. Lady said earlier in one of her answers? The right hon. Lady did—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I reminded the House again this afternoon that I usually take points of order after statements because it is fairer to the House and to those hon. Members who want to hear the statement and perhaps ask questions. I will gladly take the points of order immediately we have finished with the statement.

Mr. Robert Hughes: Mr. Robert Hughes rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will take the points of order after the statement.

CIVIL SERVICE (SIZE AND COST)

The Minister of State, Civil Service Department (Mr. Paul Channon): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement about the Government's review of the size and cost of the Civil Service.
We undertook this review for three main reasons. First, we believe that it is in the national interest to reduce the role of Government. Secondly, at a time when public expenditure as a whole has to be restrained, it is right that there should be a contribution from central Government administration. Thirdly, it is essential to examine any large organisation, public or private, from time to time and prune those activities which may have been undertaken for good reasons but which are now less necessary.
This is a report on the progress we have made so far. All Ministers have conducted an initial examination of the activities of their departments to identify the savings which can be made, whether by increased efficiency or by the abolition or curtailment of functions. As a result, we will be making savings right across the Civil Service. The scope for this varies between Departments. At one end of the scale, the Department of Transport has identified savings amounting to some 18 per cent. In other Departments the scope is much smaller, but even in the fields of law and order and defence, to which as the House knows the Government attach a particularly high priority, some valuable savings will be made.
This review will lead to annual savings in Civil Service staff costs of about £212 million, most of which will be achieved by the financial year 1982–83. The net effect on public expenditure will, however, be less than this because some of the savings will come from putting work, which will have to be paid for, out to the private sector. In terms of staff numbers, the savings total some 40,000. This is in addition to the steps we have already taken to reduce expenditure on Civil Service manpower this year, saving some 20,000 posts—60,000 in all. The Government's aim will be as far as practicable to secure the reductions by natural wastage.
The savings that will be made by Departments as a result of the decisions I am announcing today will be shown in general terms in a table in the Official Report, and copies are available in the Vote Office. Details of the savings are of course the responsibility of the departmental Ministers concerned.
These are the savings which it has been possible to identify reasonably quickly by examining a series of options across the Civil Service as a whole. The next stage will include a number of policy studies in some Departments, such as the Department of Health and Social Security, and reviews of activities already set in progress, particularly in the Ministry of Defence and the Department of the Environment.
The search for greater economy and efficiency will, of course, go on throughout the lifetime of this Parliament. All Ministers will continue to keep the work of their Departments under close scrutiny and the House will be kept informed of progress from time to time. Sir Derek Rayner will assist in particular projects to improve efficiency and value for money.
I will not try to predict the future size of the Civil Service, but we have reversed the major expansion which took place under the last Government. Our predecessors planned for a Civil Service of 748,000 by April next year. The numbers now stand at 712,000. As a result of our scrutiny, although there may be short-term fluctuations, the general trend from now on will continue downwards.
The size of the Civil Service must always depend upon the duties the Government of the day ask it to undertake. The fact that this Government set out to identify areas in which the range of work can be narrowed, and to improve the efficiency with which the rest of the work is done, is no reflection on the conscientiousness and ability with which civil servants at all levels have carried out the tasks they have been given. I am glad to pay tribute to these qualities, as I am sure is the whole House.

Mr. Wriggles worth: May I begin by challenging the Minister on a factual point that he raised? Many hon. Members will feel that they have heard all this before back in 1970 and 1971, just before the greatest expansion in public sector employment both nationally and


locally. It is simply not true to say that the major expansion in the Civil Service was during the period of the last Government.
Is the hon. Member aware that our opposition to the cuts arises from three major factors? First, we believe that they will lead inevitably to higher unemployment in certain areas of the country which can ill afford it. Secondly, we believe that some of the so-called cuts are bogus and unnecessary. Thirdly, in some cases they are damaging to the level of services to the community and in certain instances they may lead to higher costs on the public purse because those services are being farmed out to private enterprise.
Will there be any redundancies as a result of the Government's proposals, and is any legislation necessary to implement them? Can the Minister tell us what Sir Derek Rayner is doing at present? Can he add to the statements made yesterday by the Chief Secretary and himself about Sir Derek's work in marauding Government Departments and will there be further cuts in services as a result?
If one looks at the table of cuts that the Government have put before the House, one finds that there are certain examples of contracting to private enterprise—in taking care of Government property and in the Department of Transport in the testing of goods vehicles—which will not lead to any saving of public expenditure because the overheads and profit margins must be taken into account by the Government in paying for the services. We find this a totally unacceptable method of achieving cuts, both in the number of civil servants and in the level of expenditure.
Once again the electorate has been offered a shiny apple only to find that it has a rotten core in the centre. The public's services will be fewer at the end of the day and they will have to pay more for them.

Mr. Channon: I am not at all surprised that the hon. Member finds this unsatisfactory and unacceptable. The truth is that all Labour Governments since the war have expanded the size of the Civil Service and all Conservative Governments have reduced it. The hon.

Member made a simply astonishing comment that the major expansion in the Civil Service took place in 1970–71. During the last Conservative Government the size of the Civil Service fell. After the Labour Party won the 1974 general election, the size of the Civil Service rose by 48,000, almost within months.

Mr. James Callaghan: Those are phoney figures.

Mr. Channon: The right hon. Member says they are phoney figures, but they are his own published figures. If they are phoney, it is no wonder he is sensitive about them. When we arrived in office there were 733,000 civil servants. The right hon. Gentleman had planned for 748,000 by next April. We now have 712,000. That is not a phoney figure; it represents a genuine saving. My right hon. Friends and I believe that we need a smaller and more efficient Civil Service so that the general public can get their services in the most efficient way at the least cost to public expenditure. Therefore, this statement will benefit members of the public, not hinder them. All Labour Governments increase the size of the Civil Service and all Conservative Governments reduce it.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I congratulate my hon. Friend on what he has succeeded in doing so far. In his future examinations, will he consider putting more work out to contracton tender—and encouraging local authorities to do so as well—rather than merely hiving it off into unofficial public bodies as that does not mean any real saving? Will he accept that where this has been done abroad substantial savings have been made, both in manpower and in money? Will he also agree that this depends on the service concerned—whether it is national or local—reducing its overheads? Finally, will he reconsider the role of the Civil Service Department in terms of linking it more closely with the public spending department of the Treasury?

Mr. Channon: Certainly I shall consider everything that my right hon. Friend has suggested. I shall consider particularly the point about putting contracts out to the private sector. However, that should not be done at increased public expenditure. Subject to that proviso, my


right hon. Friend's points are interesting and I shall examine them carefully.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall be able to call many more hon. Members if those who are called ask just one question.

Mr. Charles R. Morris: Is the Minister aware that, while he will have support from these Benches for identifying genuine waste and inefficiency in the Civil Service, we believe that he was being slightly disingenuous in highlighting a cut of 18 per cent. in the Department of Transport and in the same breath talking about a cut of 40,000 people in a Civil Service administration of 500,000? Out of that total, a 40,000 cut is more in the region of 8 per cent., not 18 per cent. Is it really right for the Minister to make a statement which excludes three major Departments of the Civil Service—the Ministry of Defence with 120,000 civil servants; the Department of Health and Social Security with 100,000; and the Home Office with 30,000? That is literally half the Civil Service.

Mr. Channon: The right hon. Gentleman has not quite understood what I said. I said that there was a saving of 18 per cent. in the Department of Transport. I did not say that it was 18 per cent. over the Civil Service as a whole. I also said that there are already 20,000 fewer civil servants in post than there were when we won the election. Under these measures we plan a further reduction of 40,000 as our interim first step, and this will mean a total reduction of 60,000.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Does my hon. Friend agree that if there were less reluctance in some areas of the Civil Service, such as the Department of Health and Social Security, to introduce computers, there would be further scope for staff reductions?

Mr. Channon: I shall discuss the whole question of computers and the new technology with the staff and I shall certainly bear that point in mind.

Mr. James A. Dunn: How many of the posts affected by the Minister's announcement today are in the regions? Is he aware that his statement today was

in the possession of some of his officials in Liverpool early this morning?

Mr. Channon: I cannot give the exact breakdown among the regions at the moment because this is a matter for my right hon. Friends in charge of Departments. As soon as I have any information, I shall try to give it to the hon. Member.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: Is the Minister aware that the bare table of savings, which is all that he has produced in support of his statement, is a mere summary of totals of absolute figures? The solitary percentage expressed in his statement is the one that suits the Government best because it is the highest.
Will the Minister provide a more reasonable degree of information to the House, the press and the public particularly paying attention to the following facts? How many of the staff being saved are chiefs and how many are Indians? What proportion of the staff savings is the result of contracting out to private firms? Will the Minister give an absolute assurance that cost estimates for the Civil Service presented to this House will be presented Department by Department and not in one indiscriminate lump?

Mr. Channon: The hon. Member refers to a number of points. If he cares to put down a question about percentages, I will certainly give him the figure for each Department if that is what he wishes. As to the savings as a result of putting out work to the private sector, it is impossible to say exactly how much that will cost or what the net savings will be. The net annual savings as a result of the decisions announced today will not be less than £150 million. Together with the £100 million in Civil Service costs already served this year, that totals £250 million. In addition, the Government's revised plans for dispersal will bring savings of another £200 million.

Mr. Onslow: Having argued consistently for a reduction in the size of the Civil Service since I left it 20 years ago, I congratulate my hon. Friend most heartily on what he has started to do today. I put it to him, and to the Civil Service that the real test of a conscientious and able servant of the public is that he should


seek to do his job more quickly, more efficiently and at least cost to public funds rather than be interested in the size of his empire while he is serving and his pension when he retires?

Mr. Channon: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I have been encouraged by the support that I have received from many civil servants for the Government's efforts.

Mr. Donald Stewart: Will the Minister explain, in the light of his declared objectives, why he is so reluctant to put into effect quickly the intention to transfer civil servants from London to Scotland? Does he realise that it will be much cheaper in Scotland because accommodation is less costly and there is no London weighting allowance or other factors involved? There would be immediate and permanent savings.

Mr. Channon: The right hon. Gentleman will remember that I made a statement about this in July. On the specific points about the dispersal of jobs to Glasgow I am in touch with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland as a result of a question from a Scottish Member yesterday.

Mr. Straw: Is the Minister ruling out compulsory redundancies in any circumstances? When he mentions short-term fluctuations in the figures, does he recognise that the increase in the number of elderly and unemployed people might mean an increase in the short term in the number of staff employed to pay out social security benefits?

Mr. Channon: In answer to the latter part of the hon. Member's question, I am not sure that that would be the case. There are bound to be fluctuations in a large service of this kind as circumstances change over the years. I am not by any means ruling out compulsory redundancy, but I hope that there will be few. The Government are not looking for redundancies. We hope that reductions will be achieved, in the main, by natural wastage.

Mr. McCrindle: Does it remain the policy of the Government to continue with the inflation proofing of public service pensions? Does not the presentation of the social security Bill, altering

the basis of future increases to civilian pensions, give the Government the opportunity to reconsider a policy which cost a great deal of money over the past few years?

Mr. Channon: My hon. Friend raised this question yesterday. These are wide issues outside the scope of this statement, but I will certainly consider what he said.

Mr. Crowther: Will the Minister explain how there can be any kind of saving of public funds by the abolition of nearly 9,000 posts in the directly employed labour force of the Department of the Environment and the putting out of the whole of the work involved to private contractors? Does he admit or deny that cost relativity exercises in the past have shown that the directly employed labour force is extremely competitive as against private enterprise?

Mr. Channon: Detailed questions about the Department of the Environment should be put down to my right hon. Friend. I have shown in the table the sort of cost and staff savings that it is hoped to achieve in the Department of the Environment. As I said in my statement, a number of other reviews are going on in that Department which, I am sure, will result in useful savings.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Does my hon. Friend accept that the one sure way of continuing the excellent start that he has made today is to ensure that the Government and this House do not lay more legislation and more responsibilities upon the Civil Service? Will he explain the apparent paradox that the more computers bought in order to save labour costs in the Civil Service, the more spokesmen need to be hired to explain why those computers do not work?

Mr. Channon: I agree with the first part of my hon. Friend's question. As to the second part, I think that he has, uncharacteristically, mildly exaggerated the case. Useful savings have been made by the installation of computers. We intend to proceed along those lines and I hope, in the interest of the staff and the country, that there will be further useful savings.

Mr. MeCusker: I do not share any fears about attempts to reduce the size of the Northern Ireland Office, as


distinct from the Northern Ireland Department, which does the real work of government in the Province, but can the Minister assure us that when he further considers the separate Civil Service in Northern Ireland we will have a statement in the House from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland?

Mr. Channon: I had better discuss that matter with my right hon. Friend because I do not know what he has in mind. As to the Northern Ireland Office, in view of the special circumstances in Northern Ireland, the hon. Member will find that the savings there are very small.

Mr. Sainsbury: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a widespread belief that in addition to the commendable measures that he has already referred to there remains considerable scope for improving the efficiency of the Civil Service, particularly in office management and routine administration? Is he satisfied that sufficient attention is given to these somewhat mundane aspects of the work of the Civil Service at every level? Is enough central guidance and help available to Departments to assist in improving efficiency in these routine matters?

Mr. Channon: A great deal of effort goes into attempts to improve efficiency, though I am sure that my hon. Friend is right to suggest that more could be done. I shall turn my attention to this issue in the next few months.

Mr. Tilley: Is the Minister aware that the cuts are already causing distress and hardship in my constituency where a dispute about staff cuts in the DHSS has led to the suspension of many members of the CPSA at the Kennington office? The result is that increasing numbers of people in that area have no income because they are not receiving Giro cheques. Today the chairman of the local social services committee told me that she is seriously considering setting up emergency food centres—or soup kitchens—to ensure that there is no hunger at Christmas in families which include many children and old people. Will the Minister announce, in humanity, that he will reverse the social security staff cuts decision before the hardship that I have described spreads to other parts of the country?

Mr. Channon: I am extremely sorry to hear what the hon. Member has said. However, he is surely drawing the wrong conclusions. He should join me in saying that it is wrong for anyone to refuse to carry out their duties properly. Civil servants who refuse to carry out their duties may be sent home if they are not doing the work for which they are paid by the public. I hope that the hon. Member deplores such a situation as much as I do.

Mr. Brotherton: I welcome my hon. Friend's statement about the cuts in the Civil Service. Three times today he used the words "Defence Department". Will he assure the House that the cuts will not affect the defence of the realm and that they will not affect our election manifesto commitment to strengthen our defence forces?

Mr. Channon: I give my hon. Friend an absolute assurance on those points.

Mr. Clinton Davis: Will the Minister indicate what the term "reduction in marine functions" means? Does it mean the delegation of essential safety work from the marine division, with its international reputation for independence, to the private classification societies? Is the Minister aware that if that is so the Opposition will strenuously oppose that? We take the view that savings compromising safety are totally unacceptable.

Mr. Channon: I note what the hon. Member says. This is a detailed point about the work of that Department. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to table a question to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on making a fine start. Will he confirm that Departments were asked to contemplate savings of 10 per cent., 15 per cent. and 20 per cent., and that the measures that he has announced today represent rather more than half of the lowest of those figures? How soon will that target be achieved?

Mr. Channon: A target was never set. Options were put forward so that we could examine the exact consequences. As a result, savings of well over 10 per cent. have been achieved—and I mentioned the Department of Transport in particular. This is the first stage of the exercise. We


are keeping the matter under review. The House will be kept informed of progress in achieving still further staff savings.

Mrs. Renée Short: How many reductions will be in the scientific Civil Service, which in the last five or six years has been run down? Is the Minister aware that much of the work done by that service could not be done by a private office?

Civil Service Manpower


Table of Savings


Department
£ million (at 1979 survey prices)
Staff (approximate)


Ministry of Defence
41·0
7,500


Various economies and placing some work currently done in-house out to contract (in particular cleaning and catering); administrative economies from such measures as changing the arrangements for paying salaries and wages and for bill paying; further changes in arrangements for quality assurance, involving greater reliance on industry.




Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Diplomatic Service
6·0
425


Closure of some overseas posts; reduction in the size of the largest overseas missions and in staff numbers in the United Kingdom.




Overseas Development Administration
2·1
235


Reductions in staff and programmes in headquarters and at the Scientific Units.




Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
4·1
470


Simplification of capital grant schemes and other minor savings.




Department of Industry
7·9
1,290


Conversion of National Maritime Institute into a non-governmental Research Association or other industrial research laboratory; programme cuts at remaining Industrial Research Establishments; reductions in regional organisations mainly resulting from revised regional package; staff savings following expiry of Industry Schemes; and reductions in statistical, Establishment, and support services.




Department of Trade
3·1
455


Changes in companies registration; reduction in some export promotion and commercial relations activities and in various civil aviation and marine functions; continuation of transfer of work to the European Patent Office; abolition of the Metrication Board.




Office of Fair Trading
0·3
70


Extension of validity of consumer credit licences.




Export Credits Guarantee Department
0·8
145


Computerisation for short-term business, and other procedural changes.




Department of Energy
1·0
145


Reductions in activities of the Offshore Supplies Office, the Gas Standards Branch, and other services.




Department of Employment
10·9
2,575


Further savings from computerisation, fortnightly attendance and payment, and administrative improvements in Unemployment Benefit Offices; extending qualifying period for unfair dismissal to one year, dropping permanent scheme for short time working compensation and other savings.




Manpower Services Commission
20·2
3,400


Reductions in employment and training services.




Health and Safety Executive
2·2
260


Selective reductions in activities.




Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service
1·1
100


Extending qualifying period for unfair dismissal to one year, and other savings.




Department of Transport
13·1
2,480


Changes in the operation of Vehicle Excise Duty, in arrangements for inspection of heavy goods vehicles, and other savings.

Mr. Channon: I cannot yet say what the exact savings will in any branch of the Civil Service because there must first be detailed examination by all Departments. I share the hon. Lady's view of the importance of the work of the scientific Civil Service. I shall bear in mind what she has said.

Following is the table:

Department
£ million (at 1979 survey prices)
Staff (approximate)


Department of the Environment and Ordnance Survey
9·9
1,620


Simplification of housing and planning procedures; changes in organisation and programmes; disbandment of Economic Planning research Councils and other fringe bodies; other reductions in functions and support services.




Property Services Agency
29·2
4,730


Reduction in building and dispersal programmes; contracting out maintenance of government buildings and general economy measures.




Home Office
2·9
460


Improved efficiency generally and miscellaneous savings in areas other than prisons, police support and immigration control.




Lord Chancellor's Departments
1·9
450


Savings from improved efficiency, computerisation, and some reduction in services at the Public Record Office.




Department of Education and Science
1·0
155


Less intervention in matters which are the direct responsibility of Local Education Authorities and other agencies, and modifications in procedures.




Department of Health and Social Security
8·3
1,705


Measures to improve efficiency and simplify procedures in social security administration. Savings in health and personal social services work through implementation of Government policy for less intervention in the activities of the National Health Service and local authorities.




Office of Population Censuses and Surveys
1·3
275


Savings in most areas of the department, including statistical, census and survey work.




Treasury
0·4
40


Abolition of certain functions, including Exchange Control, and other reductions.




Customs and Excise
2·3
465


Abolition of Exchange Control checks and savings in general administration.




Inland Revenue
19·0
5,515


Savings from measures in the 1979 Budget and Finance Act; the cancellation of rating revaluation; changes and simplifications in administration and procedures including reduced checking of repayments of tax, a reduction in statistical work, the abolition of continuous referencing for rating purposes, reduced spot checks of local authority valuation work, less information passed to local tax districts, changes in PAYE procedures.




Department for National Savings
4·4
1,070


Completion of mechanisation of National Savings Bank; termination of British Savings Bonds and industrial group savings.




Civil Service Department
2·3
280


Reductions in Civil Service Commission and Civil Service College and in various departmental functions and support services.




Central Office of Information
0·8
140


Savings in the home service and through computerisation and general economy measures, and savings in overseas services including export promotion.




Her Majerty's Stationery Office
4·0
900


Anticipated reduction in demand for HMSO services; measures to increase efficiency; rationalisation of publications distribution organisation.




Scottish Office
3·9
600


Reductions in functions, largely in parallel with similar reductions in equivalent Whitehall departments.




Forestry Commission
1·5
240


Improvements in efficiency, cutbacks in the planned planting programme and reduced provision for public recreation.




Welsh Office
1·6
235


Miscellaneous savings, largely in parallel with similar reductions in equivalent Whitehall departments.




Northern Ireland Office
0·7
120


Savings in areas not vitally concerned with law and order.




Other Departments
3·1
325


Total
212·2
39,000

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Tom Ellis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My point of order arises out of something that the Prime Minister said earlier today. Some hon. Members may feel that what I have to say is unimportant but many of our citizens regard it as significant. The Prime Minister—inadvertently I am sure—misled the House when she said that the Government enjoy the support of the majority of the British people. The Government enjoy the support of only 33 per cent. of the British electorate. Can a means be found to correct that claim?

Mr. Speaker: I must ask hon. Members not to waste our time with interventions which clearly are not points of order. It is unfair. The debate that is to follow is only short.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (PROCEDURE)

Mr. Well beloved: I wish to raise two points of order, Mr. Speaker.
The first arises out of the timing of points of order. With respect, Mr. Speaker, I ask you to give further consideration to the practice which is developing. The House accepts that Question Time should not be interrupted with points of order. During business questions an important matter arose as a result of a statement by the Leader of the House, who, fortunately, is still in the Chamber. However, an important point of order can arise out of a statement by a Minister who has left the Chamber by the time the point of order can be made. I respectfully suggest that further consideration of the timing of points of order would be of benefit to the House.
My second point of order relates to the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) during business questions about early-day motion 261 on privilege and the conduct of the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Benyon). The Leader of the House said that that was not a matter for him, but for you, Mr. Speaker. That

must be wrong. I understand that your duty, Mr. Speaker, under the new rules introduced in February 1978, is to decide not whether there is a prima facie case but merely whether in your judgement an issue should have precedence over the Orders of the Day. No ruling has been made on the prima facie nature of the complaint, and it is for the Leader of the House to decide whether he is prepared to give Government time to an important motion on privilege which is signed by a number of senior Members of the House. It is wrong for the Leader of the House to shuffle off that responsibility on to you, Mr. Speaker. I hope that you will confirm that.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. Member for his submission on the timing of points of order. Obviously, I seek to serve the best interests of the House. This is not a new system. In the last Parliament, when the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) was engaged in the activities of his own Department and was rarely here after Question Time, points of order were raised after statements. However, I shall consider what he said.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about the question of privilege. The new system is that an hon. Member writes to Mr. Speaker if he feels that he has a question of privilege to put before the House. He does not refer to it in the House and nor does Mr. Speaker, if he has ruled on it and is not giving it precedence. That does not stop the hon. Member from seeking a debate on the Floor of the House on a motion on the Order Paper. That is not a matter for me.

Mr. Foot: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker, I add my voice to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Cray ford (Mr. Wellbeloved). I was also otherwise engaged in the last Parliament. My hon. Friend is making up for lost time. I urge the Leader of the House to consider this matter because my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) has raised an important point. Perhaps the Leader of the House will make a statement to the House on another occasion.

ABORTION (AMENDMENT) BILL

Mr. William Hamilton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I know that you have nothing to do with Committees upstairs, but you are the defender of Back Benchers' interests. When I raised with the Leader of the House the question of proceedings in the Abortion (Amendment) Bill upstairs, no doubt inadvertently he treated the matter with a levity which he later regretted. On both sides of the Committee last night there was great resentment at the continued absence from that Committee of the Minister for Health, the hon. Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan). The sponsor of the Bill had to move the adjournment of the Committee until next Wednesday, when he thought that the Minister might be able to attend.
Will you, Mr. Speaker, make representations to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House so that the interests of all Back Benchers are safeguarded? It must be made clear to all Ministers that their prime responsibility, irrespective of other engagements, is to the House of Commons. If their attendance at a Committee or in the House means cancelling an engagement outside, that engagement must be cancelled.

Mr. Speaker: I allowed the hon. Gentleman to make his point fully. The fact that the Leader of the House is still in the Chamber underlines the earlier point of order.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. St. John-Stevas): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have told the hon. Member fore Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) that I shall investigate the situation and establish the facts. I was told—apparently erroneously—that the Minister was ill. I understand that the Minister has been assiduous in his attendance.
Later—

Mr. Robert C. Brown: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton). It is common knowledge that the delay in that Committee is precluding other Private Members' Bills from beginning their Committee stages. The sponsor of the Bill has cancelled three sittings of

the Committee. That means that the Committee stage of other Private Members' Bills are being postponed. Is it not time that the Leader of the House appointed a second Committee to consider Private Members' Bills?

Mr. Speaker: I am obliged for that point of order. I am sure that what has been said will have been noted.

CIVIL SERVICE (MINISTERIAL STATEMENT)

Mr. James A. Dunn: On a point of point of order, Mr. Speaker. Earlier, in a question to the Minister of State, Civil Service Department I said that his statement was known to local managers and controllers of the Civil Service in the Liverpool and Merseyside area. Should not the House hear a statement before it is submitted at local level? Surely it cannot be right that local people are in possession of information which is not available to hon. Members? Will you, Mr. Speaker, make further inquiries?

Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. Member. However, there is little that I can do because this matter involves the working of a Government Department. The hon. Gentleman should pursue his complaint through other channels.

ZIMBABWE AND EMPLOYMENT BILLS

Mr. Ioan Evans: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I understand that the Zimbabwe Bill and the Employment Bill are to be presented to the House. I also understand from the Vote Office that, although we can get the Zimbabwe Bill today, we cannot obtain the Employment Bill. That is to be retained until tomorrow, because the Minister is to have a press conference. As it has been announced that we are to have a Second Reading, would it be possible for the Leader of the House to say that the Bill will be made available today?

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): It is quite normal for a Bill to be presented one day and to be published on another day. The practice varies with different Departments.

CAMBODIA

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Newton.]

Mr. Peter Shore: During the past appalling four years in Cambodia there has been a sustained barrage of questions, mainly, but not exclusively, from Conservative Back Benchers. That was the position when the Labour Government were in power.
I believe that this is the first time that a debate has taken place in the House on Cambodia. It is being held in Opposition time. The Opposition have chosen the subject because, contrary to the received and somewhat derogatory opinion that is so often expressed that we are becoming an inward-looking island, we ourselves, and more significantly our own people, are appalled by the dimensions of the Cambodian tragedy. We wish to assista small nation to escape virtual annihilation. We wish to make some proposals on what Her Majesty's Government could and should do, starting with the immediate withdrawal of British recognition from Pol Pot.
It is remarkable and creditable that the British people should be so concerned. Cambodia is to us not merely a far-away country—a phrase that many right hon. and hon. Members ivill recognise. It is a country with which historically—an important exception is our co-chairman-ship of the Geneva conference—we have had only the most tenuous contact. Unlike Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, we have no direct strategic interest and no political investment. We do not even have that affinity that draws democratic countries together in all parts of the world. However, we see a tragedy of such dimensions and suffering on an almost unbelievable scale. Our sense of common humanity compels us to do whatever we can to assist.
Our people have made a remarkable response. Many hon. Members will know of the "Blue Peter" television appeal—initially for £100,000–which was launched on 1 November. Within two days £150,000 was donated. The

figure announced today has exceeded £2 million. More than 10 million of our people, children and adults, have made some direct personal response to the appeal.
I shall not attempt more than a summary of the background events that have led to the Cambodian tragedy. Some account of it is necessary. That is because the events illustrate and explain the immense practical problems of assisting Cambodia now. Aid and relief are the overwhelming priorities of the next few months, but it is the continuing and longer-term political solution to which we must address ourselves.
As we all know, Cambodia was sucked into the vortex of the Vietnam war. The Ho Chi Minh trails ran through the border areas of neutral Cambodia. They were used to supply the forces of the Vietcong. In 1970 the United States decided on a massive and secret aerial bombardment of those areas, with the effects that are so vividly described in Mr. William Shawcross's book entitled "Sideshow". Apart from the physical and ecological destruction of the border areas, that military action and subsequent United States ground force deployment led to Vietnam counter-measures and to a great increase in support for the minority and, at that time, still containable forces of the Khmer Rouge. The neutralist Government of Prince Sihanouk were overturned by the army and the Lon Nol Government took over in Phnom Penh. That Government received substantial American military aid. Civil war waged until that Government fell in April 1975, a few days before the Vietcong took Saigon.
The five-year war that preceded the fall of Phnom Penh had already led to great devastation, raging inflation, a large displacement of people and a failure to plant rice, the staple food for the Cambodian people. The figures in my possession suggest that even in 1974 rice production was barely one-sixth what it had been before the civil war began. It would have needed immense effort to restore the Cambodian economy at that time. Instead, the people of Cambodia were subjected to one of the most ferocious regimes of which history has record.
The information about what happened was, and perhaps still is, inevitably patchy


and uncertain because foreign diplomats withdrew and foreign observers were expelled. Only a few countries chose to recognise the Pol Pot regime and even fewer to have diplomatic representation in Phnom Penh. Nevertheless, by the early months of 1978 the Labour Government felt that they had sufficient information, and of such a character, to raise the whole question with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. I have with me the report prepared by the United Kingdom Government and published on 14 July 1978. It makes painful reading. I shall pick from it only those facts that illustrate not merely the vengeful lunacy of the Pol Pot Government but the on-going problems that their barbarous conduct inevitably created.
I begin with the now to us familiar forcible evacuation of the cities. I quote:
In the second half of April 1975 Phnom Penh and other towns were forcibly evacuated. Foreign observers, including diplomats, who were in Phnom Penh when the new regime took over, witnessed the evacuation of the capital, which then had a population of about 2–3 million. Refugees have confirmed that other towns were evacuated.
The report goes on to cite the particularly serious aspects of the evacuation:
Its precipitate nature and the lack of exception even for the very old, the sick, the very young, or pregnant women, whose physical condition rendered them virtually incapable of enduring the forced march. Within a few days the city was virtually emptied of its former population.
How were they treated thereafter? The report tells us:
The Kampuchean authorities in some areas may have made attempts to collect food for the evacuees but supplies were inadequate, and there was apparently no clean drinking water. There was virtually no medical care. As a result of the conditions of the evacuation many people are known to have died. Some were killed by Kampuchean troops in order to keep the marchers moving or to maintain discipline. More died from exposure, however, and from diseases like cholera. Almost all the refugees who were driven from Phnom Penh have spoken of people, particularly the young, dying from sickness on the roadside.
This dreadful action was then followed up by a programme of extermination of the military and civil elite of the Cambodian nation. Officers and senior officials simply disappeared and were never seen again. This initial wave of killings slackened somewhat in the summer of 1975, but later in the year and early in 1976 evidence suggested a wide extension

of the categories of people marked down for execution. I quote again:
The Kampuchean authorities appear to have believed that anyone with a secondary or higher education, particularly teachers and people who had served the former government even in a subordinate capacity, were a potential threat to the new regime and the success of its policies. Many refugees report that at this time ordinary soldiers, government officials, teachers and students disappeared from their work-places and were presumed to have been killed.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: The right hon. Gentleman knows that I am entirely at one with him in all that he says. Does he not, in retrospect, rather regret the fact that we were not more outspoken—I am not seeking to make a party point—as a nation against these atrocities at the time?

Mr. Shore: I am quoting from the document that was prepared as a direct result and by and on the authority of the Government in 1976. It was the only Government which took the initiative with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. I do not feel that Members on either side of the House have any reason to reproach themselves for their efforts in this area in 1978. I only wish that others who had much closer and more direct contacts with Cambodia had been prepared, frankly, to make a similar effort.
But even then the terror was not to end. The revolution then turned to devour and destroy itself. I quote again:
During 1977 and 1978 a new element appeared to have been the purging of the Government's own ranks. Reports indicate that in early 1977 central government was eliminating many senior officials in the northern part of the country on the grounds that there had been plotting against the government.
In all this there was a total absence of judicial proceedings—no courts, no defence, no appeals and total suppression of the Buddhist religion, to which 85 per cent. of the population of Cambodia subscribed.
It is impossible to be accurate about the numbers who died during the Pol Pot regime, but most informed guesses put the figure at between 2 million and 3 million, half of the Cambodian population.
Not only did the Pol Pot Government wage war on their own people, but they engaged in continuing border hostilities


with both Thailand and Vietnam. In January of this year the Vietnam army, supporting the Cambodian leader Heng Samrin, invaded Cambodia and quickly occupied the bulk of the country, including the capital Phnom Penh, but stubborn guerrilla resistance in some parts of the country continued by the Pol Pot forces, who also pursued a scorched earth policy as they withdrew. So the new Administration inherited a totally devastated country—a country without administration or administrators, a country where virtually all means of transport and communication had been destroyed.
I have no affection for the present Government of Vietnam, but I do not find it in my heart to condemn them for their part in overthrowing this monstrous Cambodian regime. Following the overthrow of Pol Pot, the world seemed curiously unaware of the events in Cambodia in the first half of this year and curiously slow to establish any contact with Phnom Penh.
Much attention was focused in the summer on the tragedy of the expulsion from Vietnam of the boat people. It is quite clear, both from the statements made in this House and the proceedings of the conference held in Geneva, at the British Government's suggestion, on 20 and 21 July, that 90 per cent. of the attention and effort was devoted to the problems of the boat people and quite inadequate attention to the problems of Cambodia.
I myself raised this question during the exchanges that we had on 18 July about what I then called the "foot people", who made their way, as I put it, under appalling and distressing conditions to Thailand. I asked whether the Government could confirm that a major cause of the flight from Cambodia was hunger and what plans there were to bring food supplies to the area. The Government did not seem to have much idea of either the extent of the problem or what action could be taken. The Lord Privy Seal will confirm that we exchanged letters on this matter throughout the Summer Recess, and I was certainly pleased when the Foreign Secretary made the announcement on 6 October that Britain was prepared to make £4 million available as aid, and even more when the RAF

Hercules made its first flight iron Bangkok a week later. However, it was not until 5 November—I think that I have got the date right—when the United Nations Secretary-General convened the so-called pledging conference, that large-scale resources were at last mobilised from the international community.
Three to four valuable months were largely wasted. The reasons for this are not clear to me. The internationally backed relief agencies—the ICRC and UNICEF, which sent representatives to Phnom Penh—seemed singularly unable to make effective arrangements with the authorities there. Why? Was it simply that they were unable to agree on the conditions for supervision of the supplies? If so, what was it that suddenly made possible the Hercules flights from Bangkok to Phnom Penh from mid-October onwards? What arrangements were made for the supervision and distribution of supplies after that date? I have an uneasy feeling, taking due account of the early preoccupations with the problem of the boat people and the genuine difficulties of dealing with a suspicious and inexperienced new Administration in Phnom Penh, that there was lack of will and drive during those crucial summer months and that this lack of will basically stemmed from political and diplomatic calculations.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: I am following the serious tone that my right hon. Friend is adopting. He has now reached the point where we are bound to ask questions. There are political considerations here. Why is there no condemnation of the United Nations, following the reports that it received in silence? Why is there no condemnation of ex-President Nixon, whose disgraceful conduct in the matter is now on record, chiefly through the efforts of the press? Why is there no condemnation of ex-Secretary of State Dr. Kissinger? Unless we are frank politically about those who have played what I consider to be a criminal part in the loss of life in this country, we shall not have a debate of much use. It is time that some of us stood up to be counted and condemned those who played a disgraceful part in the matter, including those in the present Government and in the previous Government.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Order. The hon. Member cannot make a speech in an intervention.

Mr. Shore: Sometimes I am in favour of holus-bolus condemnations and I can well understand the underlying feeling and emotion of my hon. Friend. I was seeking, in as brief a way as possible, to go over the whole tragic issue that began with the military invasion of Cambodia that led, by successive stages, to the horrors of the various regimes, particularly the Pol Pot regime, which I have described.
I am trying to deal with the curious hesitation of the international community to act in a more decisive way during this summer. I suspect that the anxiety existed to help Cambodia under the Vietnam-dominated regime but that many countries felt that to help in such circumstances would be to condone the Vietnamese invasion. I also suspect that there was a considerable desire not to offend other powerful countries in the area. I hope that I am wrong. However, while I for one welcome and support the efforts to build up our friendship with China, I would not pay the price if that meant turning our backs on the clamant needs of the Cambodian people for fear of offending the Chinese, who continue to support the Pol Pot regime.
I turn to what is being done and what can be done in terms of relief and political initiative. Now that the international community has pledged the necessary resources and the machinery of external administration of supply has geared itself to the task, what is holding up the distribution of aid? There are conflicting reports. Oxfam has taken repeated and successful initiatives in getting in food supplies. Conspicuously without Government support, it has managed to work with the Heng Samrin Administration. It seems confident of getting supplies to the people who need them.
What about the ICRC and UNICEF? Has an agreement been reached on distribution, and is that aid getting through, as the UNICEF representative, M. Jacques Danois, claimed from his direct personal experience earlier this week in the country? If the aid is not getting through, or if it is moving far too slowly, as many other reports suggest, what is the reason? Have ICRC and UNICEF, unlike Oxfam, failed to reach agreement with the Cam-

bodian authorities or are the physical means of internal distribution inadequate?
What about the charge that Vietnam is either deliberately storing supplies or purloining them for its army and people? Is there any truth in that suggestion or is it part of the propaganda war against Vietnam by its hostile and uneasy neighbours, China and the countries of the ASEAN? I believe that we in Britain—indeed, in the world—should know what the truth is and what the problems are. We should state them openly and clearly, as I hope the Lord Privy Seal will be able to do when he winds up the debate. There is not much time left if the winter sowing is to take place and the relief supplies are to get through effectively. Unless the former of those objectives is achieved, next year's problem will be as bad as this year's.
I turn to the political problem of Cambodia, and I begin with the question of recognition. Given our doctrines of recognition, there was no alternative but for us to recognise the Pol Pot regime when it was clearly and indisputably in control of Cambodia in 1975. However, as the House knows, that recognition was not backed up by the exchange of diplomatic personnel. Since January of this year it has become increasingly clear that, whoever governs Cambodia, it is no longer Pol Pot. Therefore, according to our criteria, there is no case for the continued British recognition of Pol Pot. Why have we refrained from withdrawing our recognition? I asked that question of the Minister of State on one occasion and of the Prime Minister on 1 November. At that time, she did not dispute the fact that Pol Pot was no longer in control. She said:
we try to act in concert with the five Association of South East Asian Nations countries which still recognise Pol Pot. It is advisable for us to try to act together on these matters."—[Official Report, 1 November 1979; Vol. 972, c. 1447.]
Indeed, we should take account of the views of the ASEAN countries. However, having listened to those views, we should firmly commit ourselves to the de-recognition of Pol Pot.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter) made the point that not only the ASEAN countries but over 70 nations of the United Nations voted for the continued recognition of that Government in September. It is


something on which Britain, at any rate, should give a lead, even is others do not follow. We should make our position absolutely plain. In urging the Government to withdraw recognition of Pol Pot,
I do not, as The Times urged in a recent leader, recommend that we should—certainly not at this stage—recognise the present Administration in Phnom Pen. The argument that we should recognise the Administration in order to make it possible for ourselves and other countries to feed our own hungry people is remarkable and repellent. To be fair, that argument has been used on their behalf rather than by the Heng Samrin Administration. If that was their position, in moral terms there would be little to choose between them and the monster that they have deposed.
De-recognition of Pol Pot would help to allay the unreasonable suspicions that the present Administration entertain towards the outside world and their obsessive anxieties that the flow of some relief supplies into the hands of the Pol Pot remnants is politically motivated. I strongly urge the Government to do what I believe the country and the majority of the House want—de-recognise Pol Pot, and do it now.
Nevertheless, there is more to be done. I direct the Government's attention to the dangers of the conflict between Cambodia—backed by Vietnam—and her neighbour Thailand. There have been heavy and frequent exchanges of gunfire across the border, and the Pol Pot forces move in and out. That may well lead to increasing Vietnamese incursions into Thailand. Obviously, we should take full account of the views of the Thailand Government. If, in their judgment, the danger is of a serious sort, it is right for the matter to go to the Security Council of the United Nations. Still more important is the conflict between Vietnam and China.
No doubt the Chinese incursion into northern Vietnam a few months ago had much to do with the Vietnamese policy of expelling ethnic Chinese from their territory. There is also good reason to believe that a powerful motive was to draw off Vietnamese troops from Cambodia to relieve the pressures on China's ally there, Pol Pot. That motive remains. There has been talk of China teaching

Vietnam a second lesson. That is a dangerous prospect which could threaten peace and security, not just in Indo-China but in other countries.
I should like the Government to consider whether there is any possibility of reviving the 1954 Geneva conference machinery. One advantage of that could be to bring the Soviet Union, ourselves and others concerned into talks on the future of Cambodia.
I entirely agree with the sentiments expressed in the communiqué issued after the Dublin summit last week:
A solution to the wider problems which confront Cambodia should be based on an independent and neutral Cambodia, with a genuine representative Government, free from any foreign military presence and maintaining friendly relations with all the countries of the region.
It was a neutral Cambodia that the Geneva conference helped to sustain for 15 years before the tragic events of 1970 and thereafter. Whatever conference machinery can be used, those are the goals which the Government and the House should pursue.

The Lord Privy Seal (Sir Ian Gilmour): Like the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore), I welcome the fact that we are discussing the situation in Cambodia. I agreed with a great deal of what he said, especially about the historical background, though my agreement lessened as the history came nearer the present. However, I certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman's condemnation of the Pol Pot regime.
I hope to be able to assuage the right hon. Gentleman's fears about any lack of will earlier this year, but I agree with what he said about there being two aspects to the problem—a political aspect and a humanitarian aspect, the desperate needs of the starving and homeless people of Cambodia.
Over the past decade, the Cambodian people have had their traditional way of life utterly destroyed. Their involvement in the regional conflict dates from the previous decade, but their suffering was greatly intensified when the Khmer Rouge overran the country in 1975.
Unfortunately, it was some time before the free world realised the full horror of the nihilistic and ruthless regime that


came to power under Pol Pot and its dedication to the destruction of the social structure and every vestige of individual freedom in Cambodia.
The right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar may be right in his estimate of 2 million to 3 million, but we shall never know how many hundreds of thousands of people died of hunger, torture, exhaustion or sheer mindless killing in a country where the possession of even a pair of spectacles was taken as a mark of privilege worthy of the sentence of immediate death.
The misery was compounded in December 1978, when, after a period of confused brawling on the frontier, the Vietnamese army surged into Cambodia. This is one area where I part company with the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar. I do not condone the Vietnamese invasion. The Vietnamese invaded not as liberators but as occupiers, in flagrant contravention of the Charter of the United Nations.
As we are all too well aware through television programmes, the relentless war has brought with it disease, death and starvation of a sort reminiscent of the 30 years' war or the middle ages.
We cannot view the invasion in isolation, but I should like to put it in a slightly different context from that outlined by the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar. In the past four years the policies and actions of the Vietnamese Government have consistently undermined the stability not only of Indo-China but of the entire region and particularly the Association of South-East Asian Nations.
The Vietnamese Government's expulsion of their unwanted population in small unseaworthy boats earlier this year spoke for itself. The free countries of the area, especially Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong, have faced intolerable burdens as a result of that action.
The invasion of Cambodia and the prolonged occupation by a Vietnamese army now numbering about 200,000, coupled with the starvation that the war has brought in its wake, have added enormously to the problem. I do not believe that we should be hesitant in declaring our condemnation of the Vietnamese Government's actions and our strong

support for ASEAN. Those countries are our friends. Two of them, Singapore and Malaysia, are members of the Commonwealth, and Britain has strong historical and commercial interests in the area. In addition, ASEAN is a major factor for strength and stability in the region and we have all watched with admiration its growing economic and political development.
It is strongly in the free world's interests that ASEAN should survive and develop as a major political and trading partner of the free world. We cannot be indifferent to such a major threat to the cohesion and prosperity of those countries.
Principal among those affected in ASEAN is Thailand. The effect on Thailand of the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia has been direct and devastating. About 300,000 Cambodian refugees have already fled to Thailand to escape the fighting and starvation.
As the House will be aware, the fighting is intensifying in those regions of Cambodia near the Thai border, and million or more homeless people are reported to be moving in search of food and sanctuary.
Faced with that intolerable burden, the attitude of the Thai authorities has been worthy of the highest praise. They have undertaken not to return refugees to Cambodia and they are taking extraordinary steps, in concert with the relief agencies, to offer housing, food and medical attention. My hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development recently visited the camps in Thailand and was exceedingly impressed by the high standards of efficiency with which they are run.
I shall deal shortly with Britain's role in assisting in that humanitarian effort, but I should like to refer first to our attitude towards political developments inside Cambodia.
Our objectives are clear enough. We abhor the barbarism of the Pol Pot regime. I do not think that there is any disagreement about that in the House. Vietnam's violation of Cambodian territory and its prosecution of a ruthless war have added a new and dangerous dimension to the conflict. We believe that the peace and stability of Indo-China depend


on the re-establishment of an independent Cambodia, free of foreign troops and the influence of great Power rivalries, under a national Government chosen by the people of Cambodia in an act of self-determination.
The continuance of Vietnamese aggression in defiance of the charter of the United Nations is indefensible.

Mr. James Lamond: How does the right hon. Gentleman think that the people of Cambodia, who were suffering from what President Carter described as the most vicious and brutal regime in the world, could have freed themselves from that regime without assistance from anyone in the outside world, such as was brought to them by the Vietnamese?

Sir I. Gilmour: The hon. Gentleman is ignoring the fact that I am trying to outline to the House, namely, that although the regime of Pol Pot was indefensible and abhorrent, the Vietnamese invasion has made the situation of the Cambodian people even worse. That is a stark fact. It is easy to support one side against another. The difficulty is that in this case both sides are wrong. That is the stark fact with which we are faced. It has made their condition worse—war nearly always does.
The House will recall that last February, when the matter was brought before the Security Council, only the Soviet veto saved Vietnam from condemnation and a call to withdraw its troops. Since then, the ASEAN countries, with our wholehearted support, have sought with courage and persistence to invoke the authority of the United Nations. Last month, an overwhelming majority of 91 members of the General Assembly, including this country, adopted an ASEAN resolution calling again for foreign forces to be withdrawn.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I have not been in Cambodia as recently as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Lamond), but I was fortunate enough to go there in happier times. The truth is that many of those around Prince Sihanouk were educated in Hanoi. People like Son San had close ties with the Vietnamese, who, as I understand—I ask whether this is true—were asked by many Cambodians to help them

out of their shackles. Matters may have gone sour after that. But is it or is it not a fact that there were many suffering in Cambodia who actually asked the Vietnamese, in their desperation and misery, to come in?

Sir I. Gilmour: There may have been some. If such intervention were to be useful, it should have taken place much earlier. That may be a heretical statement. A lot of damage was done, and my argument is that the invasion has not improved the condition of the Cambodians. It has made it worse. That is the sad fact with which we are faced. The disasters of Cambodia began in 1969–70, became very much worse in 1975, and became very much worse again after the invasion.
This brings me to the question posed by the formal position that we have so far maintained of recognition of the regime headed by Pol Pot. I do not need to remind Opposition Members that the previous Administration recognised the regime established after the fall of Phnom Penh. They then offered to establish diplomatic relations, and continued in their attempts to do so even after the true nature of the Government led by Pol Pot became clear. In August 1976 they established relations with Pol Pot. Indeed, it was not until late 1977 that the last Administration ceased its efforts to accredit a British ambassador to that regime.

Mr. Edward Rowlands: I have stood at the Government Dispatch Box time and time again on this issue. Were not many of the representations received from the then Opposition to the effect that perhaps we ought to get somebody into Cambodia in order to find out what was going on? Quite rightly, we did not do that. The pressures were not on the question of recognition at that time but on the barbarities of the regime, which we subsequently took up in the United Nations, almost uniquely, as a result of all-party pressure. I am puzzled and baffled that the Lord Privy Seal can stand and say that the Government position is that the Pol Pot regime remains a legitimate regime and the legitimate Government of Cambodia. That is totally indefensible.

Sir I. Gilmour: I have not said that. If I had said that, it might or might not


have been indefensible. I was not seeking to criticise the previous Administration; I was seeking to say that their attitude and behaviour was similar to the attitude and behaviour of the present Government. In that spirit, I perfectly agree that the actions of the previous Administration are easier to criticise with hindsight, and I fully concede that it was the previous Administration who eventually took the lead in citing the regime of Pol Pot before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. We were disappointed that their efforts to achieve prompt action were blocked by Bulgaria and the Soviet Union. We intend, in the same spirit, to do anything that we can to ensure that consideration of human rights in Cambodia does not lapse in the Human Rights Commission.
When we came to power last May, Pol Pot's Government held a dwindling proportion of the territory in Cambodia. Since September that proportion has further dwindled though, of course Pol Pot's forces continue to resist. As the House is aware, our normal criteria require us to accord recognition to a Government who enjoy, with a reasonable prospect of permanence, the obedience of the mass of the population and the effective control of much the greater part of the country. The House will have noted statements by my hon. Friend the Minister of State on 22 October and on 1 November by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who emphasised our wish to explain fully to other Governments of the area our view of the situation as it has developed and as I have given it to the House this evening. This we have done.
It will therefore come as no surprise to the House if I say that we can no longer regard Pol Pot as leading an effective Government in Cambodia. By the same token, however, the dependence of the so-called Heng Samrin regime on the Vietnamese occupation army is complete; there is no reason to doubt that without the presence of the occupation troops it would be swept away by resurgent Cambodian nationalism. I therefore make it very clear that we emphatically do not recognise any claim by Heng Samrin. Our position is that there is no Government in Cambodia whom we can recognise. This position is shared by the

United States and by some of our leading friends in Europe.

Mr. Rowlands: I extend my apology to the Lord Privy Seal and withdraw my earlier remarks. I am delighted with the decision made by the Government.

Sir I. Gilmour: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said.
I come now to the humanitarian issues, which are every bit as important. The immediate concern of the international community, obviously, must be to relieve the appalling famine and disease in Cambodia. As the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar recognised, we were one of the first Governments to make a positive, detailed commitment to supply humanitarian aid to the Cambodian people. We did so on 6 October. This was not due, as the right hon. Gentleman possibly suggested, to a lack of will on our part. We did so only 10 days after the international agencies first announced that they had received agreement from the Phnom Penh authorities to go ahead with their plans, and two weeks before the United Nations Secretary-General launched the joint ICRC/UNICEF appeal. We had already responded within 48 hours to the ICRC's request to lend it an RAF Hercules to start up the air bridge from Bangkok to Phnom Penh. Its first flight was on 13 October and in five weeks it delivered 470 tonnes of supplies, including 48 trucks and Land Rovers.
Other countries followed suit, and at Dr. Waldheim's pledging conference on 5th November, a month after our own announcement, a total of over £100 million was committed. Our own contribution directly and through the European Economic Community is over £7 million. The size and timeliness of our aid, in particular the loan of the Hercules, have been widely praised. The House will, I am sure, share the general admiration of the efficiency of all those involved in this operation.
Full details of our relief programme have been placed in the Library of the House and given to many hon. Members in correspondence with Ministers of the Foreign Office. This consists of direct relief totalling £3·5 million and an indirect contribution, through the aid programme of the European Community,


of another £3·5 million—about 18 per cent. of the total EEC programme.

Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: Will not the Minister agree that one of the most successful agencies in this field has been Oxfam, especially in establishing relations? But that agency is one of the few within the consortia that is not receiving direct Government assistance. Would he reconsider that?

Sir I. Gilmour: I shall certainly consider the hon. Gentleman's point, but I think that it is a mistake to enter into any sort of competition, as it were, between the relief agencies. They are all doing their best. If Oxfam has any complaints and there is anything that we can do to help, we shall try to do so. However, I do not think that we should single out any one particular agency. I think that all of us in this House would wish to join in giving due praise to all the non-governmental agencies which have done so much to surmount the appalling difficulties in giving aid in Kampuchea. As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, through "Blue Peter" and other programmes the British people have shown wonderful generosity in responding to the appeals. Our own relief programme has also benefited the non-governmental agencies.
I should like now to say something about the administration and distribution of the aid within Cambodia. All the international relief agencies have made excellent progress in adverse conditions. That is why we relied on them, because they obviously could do things that Governments could not do. They have managed to work wonders. If there have been any shortcomings in the relief programme, it has not been due to any lack of generosity or diligence among the agencies. It is due to the fact that inside Cambodia there are severe transport and distribution bottlenecks. But there is cause for deep concern about the attitude of the Vietnamese authorities in this matter.
Hon. Members will have read how the Vietnamese authorities for many long weeks laid down conditions that the international agencies were unwilling to observe. One condition was that no aid should be given any Cambodian who was not subject to their control. At the

end of September matters appeared to be resolved to the agencies, satisfaction. However, recently there have been reports that the authorities on the spot have inisisted on urgently needed supplies being stockpiled in Phnom Penh and Kompong Som, instead of being distributed as quickly as possible.

Mr. Dalyell: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that British Leyland workers donated two extra hours of working time and that Ford's truck division was working overtime for Cambodian relief? Will the right hon. Gentleman ask his colleague, in replying to the debate, to say whether these trucks have been distributed or whether there are any difficulties?

Sir I. Gilmour: I understand that 48 trucks were distributed, but I will ask my hon. Friend to deal with the hon. Gentleman's question.
Other reports have spoken of the Vietnamese destroying crops and food stores as part of their strategy of denying resupply to the Pol Pot forces. We are in constant touch with officials of the relief agencies and we are all deeply worried by mounting evidence of apparent obstruction and extortion by the Vietnamese authorities. If this proves to be true, it will be a monstrous scandal. We shall follow with particular attention the progress of the 2,500 tonnes of rice which will be sent to Phnom Penh later this month as part of our relief contribution.
Like every other hon. Member, I regret that the situation we are debating is one of unrelieved misery. In the course of 1979, the policies of the Vietnamese Government have created unprecedented human crises in Indo-China. The other nations in the area have absorbed this burden with enormous resilience, and the international community, mainly in the shape of the free world, has responded with generous material and financial help.
But the humanitarian response is not enough. Britain and our partners must continue to apply concerted political pressure in the hope that reason and humanity will prevail, and that sooner rather than later the Khmer people will find peace and prosperity again in their own country. This is a problem not just for the peaceful States of South-East Asia, which are dangerously close to the conflict, but for


all those who stand against cruelty and oppression.
I do not, naturally, wish to raise false hopes of an immediate political initiative which might result in a Government of Cambodia freely chosen by the Khmer people themselves. The history of 1979 suggests that any attempt to move matters to the conference table would not succeed. We envisage that a sustained and collective effort on the part of many nations will be necessary. However, I assure the House of the British determination to contribute in whatever way we can to achieve the objectives which I have outlined and which I am confident the House will support.

Mr. David Ennals: In this short but very welcome debate, there are three main points that I want to put before the Lord Privy Seal.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) for having initiated the debate. I welcome the announcement that was made by the Lord Privy Seal in terms of de-recognition of Pol Pot, but I want to make some points that will be more critical of the Government's position so far.
We are debating a situation which is intensely complicated and intensely depressing. Cambodia as we know it is a lovely country of gentle people, and it is now in the course of obliteration. But let none of us imagine that that obliteration has simply been over the last few years; it has lasted for the last 10 years. We cannot exclude the fact that in May 1970 Cambodia was bombed and invaded by the United States. The intensity of the bombing at that time, as well as the cruelty of the Khmer Rouge forces, forced over 3 million people to flee their homes, many of them crowding into the cities.
Then in 1975, as my right hon. Friend said, the Khmer Rouge began their campaign of emptying the towns and killing their own people, creating a land of murder, starvation and fear and of utter demoralisation. The Opposition have condemned this. We ought to pay some tribute to the BBC and to the Daily Mirror for having brought these facts—which must have been known—before the country. It has been claimed that

up to 3 million people died as a result of the Pol Pot genocide, which I can only compare with the actions of Hitler in the 1940s.
Then we had the invasion of January 1979. I can understand those who say that there was some justification for it, but as I look at the evidence I cannot feel that Kampuchea has been liberated. I have heard reports from many sources that the Vietnamese are treating Cambodians with not as much respect as they deserve—not with the bitterness and cruelty of Pol Pot, but certainly not in a way that would entitle the Vietnamese, as the Lord Privy Seal said, to recognition at this stage. The Vietnamese must themselves accept some measure of blame for the famine which seems now to exist in parts of Kampuchea.
I give just one example. The International Red Cross asked for permission to visit Cambodia in February of this year. It was not until the end of July that one ICRC and one UNICEF man were allowed to travel up from Saigon for a few days. The ICRC submitted a detailed relief plan in August, and eventually six people were permitted to be stationed in Phnom Penh to monitor what relief supplies were coming in. However, I learnt today that even those six are not allowed to travel outside Phnom Penh to look at what is happening in other parts of the country.
I want to pay my tribute to what is being done by Oxfam. It was the first to get into the country, and it deserves credit for that. There has been mass support for Oxfam, for the Red Cross, for UNICEF and for the Churches. I therefore welcome the right hon. Gentleman's announcement that support for Pol Pot has been withdrawn. I think that he was right in not announcing recognition of Heng Samrin, undoubtedly imposed from outside by Vietnamese forces. Had he done so, it would have been a blow to Sihanouk, who, after all, preserved the neutrality of Cambodia from 1954 to 1970 and is attempting to do so once again. It would have been a stab in the back for him had we taken a different decision from the one that was announced today.
I am critical of the Government's failure to respond to the United Nations High Commissioner's appeal for financial support for his


operations in helping the Kampuchean refugees who are now in Thailand. I agree that the initiative taken by the Thais in opening their frontiers is one that we must commend. The refugee figures are enormous. I was told by representatives of the Red Cross at a meeting today that the number of refugees fleeing from Kampuchea into Thailand doubled between the end of October and mid-November, and more arrive daily. New holding camps are being hurriedly constructed 10 km from the border area which is being cleared by the Thai authorities. About 650,000 refugees are being moved to the camps, many of them too weak to walk and suffering from severe malnutrition complicated by malaria, pneumonia, heart conditions, intestinal disorders and so on. That was the report that I received from the ICRC.
I noticed the answer that was given by the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to a question from the hon. Member for Norfolk, North-West (Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler). He asked the Lord Privy Seal
what requests for aid received from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees are outstanding; and if he is in a position to make a statement about further support for…Kampuchea".
The answer was:
We have yet to reply to the recent appeal by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in respect of Cambodian refugees now in Thailand. However, we have pledged £6 million this year to the High Commissioner's general programmes, which finance some of his activities in Thailand".—[Official Report, 23 November 1979; Vol. 974, c. 366.]
The Minister will know that that was a very poor response. It may be that following the visit of the Minister for Overseas Development we shall have some new announcement, but since the United Nations High Commissioner, working with the Thai Government, has accepted such a huge responsibility, it is intolerable that the response from the British Government has been so modest.
I should like to deal with what I felt was an unsatisfactory reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar with regard to a diplomatic initiative. In 1954 the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were joint-chairmen of the Geneva conference on Indo-China. I believe that we should again take up that task. Some of us have already paid our

tribute to the achievement of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in dealing with Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. He has a problem before him here which I believe he should also tackle. We have a role that we can play. Along with the Soviet Union, we are still joint-chairmen of that conference.
I am not suggesting that it will be easy, but I believe that it is expected of Britain, which, after all, has no external interests. It cannot be for the United States to step in and take an initiative. It cannot be the Chinese or the Russians, because they have been involved in one way or another, the big Powers have been involved in creating misery, bloodshed and horror for three small countries that were once one. But Britain has a different role, and I believe that we should try to fulfil it.
Even if it takes many months, we should have discussions with the other Governments concerned—the French, the United States, our colleagues in the West, the Soviet Union and China—to try to bring about a conference in an attempt to re-establish neutrality in that area. Otherwise, we may find not just conflict between East and West but conflict between the Soviet Union and China in that part of the world.
We need a conference that should provide for the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and the restoration of genuine neutralism, and agreement by China to some form of non-aggression pact with Vietnam which would require that country not to attack Vietnam directly or through Laos.
I was glad that a question was asked about what contribution Japan had offered at the pledging conference. I have the list of those who attended, and Japan is not on it. That country did not make a pledge on 16 November. We should try, through the agencies of the United Nations and the Powers that are prepared to assist, to construct a massive programme of Marshall-type aid for the people of a part of the world who do not deserve the misery that has been imposed upon them, mainly from outside.

Dr. Alan Glyn: I am sure that the whole House is grateful to the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) for


bringing this subject before us. The plight of the Cambodian people is one of the greatest tragedies. My right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal compared it with the 30-year war, and the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals) made a comparison with the Hitler regime. It would be more correct if he had compared it with Stalin's liquidation of the Kulaks, because almost exactly the same number of people have suffered from this appalling tragedy. I was glad to hear from my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal about his diplomatic relationship with Cambodia. It is most difficult, when there are two warring factions, to decide which one to recognise. I thought my right hon. Friend dealt with the situation admirably.
Our record in Cambodia is good. We should be proud of the way in which the British people have responded. Many of them have perhaps never heard of Cambodia and do not know very much about it, yet the response has been immense. I congratulate the Government on the way in which they have organised the help. I also appreciate the role that ASEAN has played. That is a step towards our recognition of an important and vital organisation.
I accept almost everything that the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar said, except for one comment. I differ with him about the reason for the invasion of Cambodia by the Vietnamese. I support my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal here. There was always a hatred by the Vietnamese—I remember discussing this with Lon Nol—because of the Ho Chi Minh trail and the use of the Mekong River which provided the Vietcong with their supplies. I think that is a stronger reason for the invasion than the humanitarian reason or any other reason. I regard the incursion of the Vietnamese into Cambodia as nothing short of an invasion.
When I was in Cambodia, Lon Nol was good enough to send me up to the front lines. I remember he said how difficult it would be for any regime, whatever its political complexion, to beat what was an extremely well-organised campaign. That campaign was organised by the Chinese and Russians. I remember that the weapons that were captured, rather like those of the Vietnamese army, were either Chinese or Russian. We must

look towards the future. Cambodia played an active part at the beginning of the war between North and South Vietnam but was a reluctant participant towards the end. I remember that when Lon Nol found he was having great difficulty in combating the Communists, Big Ming, commander-in-chief of the Vietnamese air force, flew me over in his personal plane to see Lon Nol, and it was at that point that the Vietnamese said that they would try to help the Cambodians in their struggle against the Communists. Therefore, there is some truth in what has been said. But the primary reason was the earlier long-standing difficulty they had had in getting supplies through Cambodia.
One of the most important and difficult things in a relief operation like this is to ensure that the food, materials and clothing get to the right people. In many of these operations the relief gets into the hands of the middle man and he sells the rice at double the price. Somehow and in some way we must make sure that the supplies given by us get to the right people and are not dissipated. I am sure that our Government have done their best. We are all grateful to Oxfam, UNICEF and all the voluntary organisations which have played such a great part. We are also grateful to our own forces who have worked hard in making their relief operation a success. With two warring Communist factions in Cambodia, combined with the Vietnamese occupation, things are extremely difficult.
I turn to the problems of Thailand. That country has given most generous help. For many years the Thais have been faced with the Communist threat in Udong and the northern provinces. We have been told by the Lord Privy Seal that the number of Cambodians actually in camps in Thailand is 300,000 but I have been told on good authority that the number coming from Cambodia to Thailand is between 750,000 and 1 million. What are we to do about these people? It is no use sticking them in camps. We must find employment for them. Thailand has its own employment problems. The most important task facing the international community is to look at this in the long term. We have here a block of people who must be settled and found jobs.
I stress that Great Britain has set the lead. Let us hope that other nations will follow us. The right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar was right when he said that we had no direct obligation to Cambodia and that the only obligation we had was as a co-signatory of the Geneva agreement yet, despite this, our people had responded in an unbelievable way. I agree.
We must solve the refugee problem and help Thailand. As the Lord Privy Seal said, we must endeavour to get some recognition for, and stability in, Cambodia. I do not know how we can do this, but we must find a way. Nations must get together, give relief and help to provide some form of stability. There is a danger here. We may at the moment have a rapprochement with China, but it is well known to those who know Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia that the eyes of the Chinese have always been directed towards that area, which many of them regard as their sphere of influence.

Mr. Stanley Newens: As has been pointed out, during the last decade Cambodia has suffered the loss of over a quarter of its population, the complete destruction of its economy and the unparalleled devastation of its territories. I am delighted that the Government have contributed some aid and I give them credit for that. I am proud of the part that has been played by the British people in rendering assistance. However, those who have followed the events of the last 10 years should be sickened by the consequences of policies that many hon. Members in this House failed to denounce at the time.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals) said that the tragedy of Cambodia began in May 1969, when B32 bombers, on the secret orders of President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger, began to rain down their bombs. Napalm and anti-personnel bombs were dropped on Cambodian towns and villages. The truth about that bombing has been revealed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) said, by William Shawcrossin his book "Sideshow". It is all very well for people to say that they object today to the Viet-

namese invasion, as they now call it, but let us remember that at that time no hon. Members now sitting on the Government Benches denounced the American invasion or the bombing. There was no doubt that United States aeroplanes were not dropping food. They were dropping the means of destruction on the Cambodian population.
In 1970 the neutralist Government of Prince Sihanouk was overthrown by the American-backed coup of Lon Nol. None of the supporters of the present Government denounced the coup at the time. I was one of the Members of this House who spoke out against it but not one supporter of the present Government spoke out. The result was that, when American policies in the whole of Indo-China finally collapsed, a vacuum was created in which it was possible for a group of homicidal fanatics to set up the Pol Pot regime. That regime was responsible for the death of more than 2 million Cambodians.
Conservative Members were not silent about that regime. An early-day motion was tabled by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), who is not here this evening, as early as 1976 calling on Britain to withdraw recognition of the Pol Pot regime. I recall that the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) also spoke out about that regime. Strangely enough, in 1977 he was the sponsor of a motion which called for Government aid to be sent to refugees from the Pot Pot regime who had fled to Thailand. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will refresh his memory about that motion and perhaps put it into effect now.
I am glad that it has been announced today that the British Government are to withdraw recognition from the Pol Pot regime. The appalling thing is that a Conservative Government, many of whose supporters spoke out so long ago against Pol Pot, should have supported, in the Unied Nations a couple of weeks ago, a motion to continue recognition of the Pol Pot regime there. It was deplorable, particularly since at that stage the regime had ceased to fulfil the criteria that we normally apply. The reason is that British policy has been determined throughout not by humanitarian considerations but by pure power politics. I regret that that is still the case.
I refer to the invasion by Vietnam. A fair amount of hypocrisy is demonstrated in the denunciation of that invasion. The Government's attitude to that is nothing like the attitude which they adopted to similar circumstances in Uganda. In Uganda, opponents of the barbaric regime of President Amin were supported by an invading army—the Tanzanian army—yet Britain and many other countries rightly recognised that new Ugandan regime immediately. Anybody who suggests that the new Ugandan regime is more independent than the present Heng Samrin regime does not face facts. The reason why we recognised the new Ugandan regime and failed to recognise the Heng Samrin regime is that our policies are still dictated by power politics and not by the interests of the people involved.
Indonesian Government troops have invaded East Timor. That has resulted in the deaths of between one-eighth and one-quarter of the population. The Government have made not a murmur against the Indonesian invasion. At the United Nations the British Government abstained on the motion to denounce that invasion.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This debate is about Cambodia.

Mr. Newens: I am trying to relate my remarks to Cambodia. I am arguing that the Britsh Government have behaved differently towards the present Cambodian regime from the way in which they behaved in other parts of the world. They have applied double standards. We appear to prefer the Pol Pot regime, which caused so many deaths, to the Heng Samrin regime which has succeeded it. The dispatch of supplies was made more difficult by our stand. The Lord Privy Seal suggested that there was evidence that the Vietnamese had refused to allow supplies through. It is understandable that the Vietnamese object to supplies being sent to support the Khmer Rouge.
Today in The Times it is reported that the Thai authorities are cutting off food supplies to the so-called Free Khmers, on the ground that they are involved in hostilities. Not a word has been said this evening in condemnation of the Thais. I do not believe that there should be condemnation, but we should apply the same standards in both cases.
When considering the denial of food supplies, we must remember that the United States Government, more than any other, have been responsible for denying food supplies as a means of pressurising Governments of which they are not particularly fond. We should remember what happened in 1975. The Saigon regime was receiving enormous support from the United States, but when the war ended food and other supplies were cut off overnight. It is totally hypocritical for us to say that the Vietnamese are seeking to stop supplies getting through when they may be stopping supplies going through to the Khmer Rouge who are still fighting. Again, I quote The Times of yesterday. Jacques Danois, the UNICEF representative, said that he had seen the Vietnamese distributing aid among the civilians there. He said:
I don't see why Vietnam would take away with one hand what they are giving with the other.
I believe that in future British policy should be formulated on a different basis. We should recognise the rights of small nations, regardless of whether we think in the short term that it is in the interests of Britain to do so. We should not continue to follow a policy that is based upon a desire not to offend China or the United States in order to further general Western interests.
It is sad that the regime of Prince Sihanouk was overthrown. We must face the facts that prevail today. Sooner or later we shall have to recognise the present regime of Heng Samrin. It would be better for us to recognise that regime at this stage than to inflict further suffering on a people who have already suffered so much.

Mr. Ennals: Does my hon. Friend agree that if it were possible to achieve that it would be better to have once again a neutral regime in Kampuchea as opposed to a regime that takes one point of view or another? My hon. Friend will know that some Governments have already supported the initiative of Sihanouk. Why does he argue against that initiative?

Mr. Newens: I spoke out regularly in favour of Sihanouk at the time when he had been overthrown by Lon Nol. A number of my friends associated with the


Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation went to China to see Sihanouk. We did everything possible, with no recognition from the previous Government or the present Government when they were in Opposition of the case that we were making.
In the present circumstances I do not see how it is possible to return to a situation in which Sihanouk could rule a neutral Cambodia. I should not grumble if that happened, but we must face reality. The Heng Samrin regime is in power. If failure to recognise that regime will make it more difficult for us to supply aid, we should put the interests of the people of that country to the forefront. That would be singularly different from what we have done in the past.
We should recognise that those who failed to speak out in the past against the policies followed and supported by the House on the bombing and invasion of Cambodia have contributed directly or indirectly to the tragedy of that small country. The least that we can do is to learn the lesson today.
We should no longer regard it as in the British interest to support anti-Communist policies, however horrific they may be, because in the long run support for those policies can produce tragedies, such as Cambodia as well as damage our interests. We should put our policies on a different basis. We should recognise the tragic, criminal mistakes that were made in the past. We cannot do that if we allow what we do to be determined only by international power considerations and the promotion of what are blandly regarded as Western interests.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before calling the next speaker, I should point out that I am anxious to call all right hon. and hon. Members who wish to speak in the debate. I shall be able to do that if speeches are now limited to five minutes.

Sir Bernard Braine: I do not propose to take up the strictures that the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) has seen fit to pass on Conservative Members. I prefer to follow the constructive line of the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore).
All hon. Members without exception have for a long time felt immense pity and an immense anger—immense pity for the vast numbers of gentle people deliberately destroyed and the millions more who have suffered appalling cruelty, and immense anger because such cruelty has been perpetrated without any part of the world lifting a finger to help them.
I do not altogether agree with my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal in condemning intervention. What do people do when they are crushed beneath a merciless tyranny? How were the people of Uganda to get rid of the atrocious, appalling Amin regime, except by welcoming the Tanzanian invader? It may be that the Vietnamese have not, for the time being at any rate, done much to ease the sufferings of the Cambodian people, but their intervention could be the beginning of a new chapter.
Yet pity, anger and even recrimination are not enough. Indeed, humanitarian aid, such as is getting through to the unfortunate people of Cambodia, is not enough. Mr. Rajaratnam of Singapore, speaking in Geneva in July, said that to discuss humanitarian issues without referring to their political causes was like playing Hamlet without the ghost: it was absurd. He was right.
What is needed now is a new political initiative. The right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals) was right in saying what he did about that subject. The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary's skill and patience have been rewarded by success in Africa. We must hope that it will continue and will lead to further success. It was an undoubted achievement of a kind that none of us thought possible a few months ago. We all pray that the way ahead is clear for a lasting settlement of a 14-year-old dispute which has poisoned Commonwealth relations and made things infinitely more difficult for the West in the key continent of Africa.
Why not follow on with another healing exercise? It seems to me that Britain, following the success of the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia conference, is now well poised for a diplomatic initiative in Indo-China.
I understand that Prince Sihanouk was in Paris last week and that he let it be known that he had approached the British


Ambassador in Peking with the suggestion that the United Kingdom should play a leading role in convening an international conference on Cambodia. He believes that such a conference should take the form of the 1954 conference on Indo-China, which, the House will remember, was recalled in 1962 to deal with Laos and was co-chaired by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.
I have a specific question for my hon. Friend the Minister. What has happened to that approach? Is it being seriously considered?
We are grateful to those responsible for initiating the debate, which is the first opportunity that we have had for a long time to focus attention on this grave matter and to express the deep concern of the British people of all sections and all political beliefs on what has been happening.
We are entitled to know, therefore, with what seriousness Prince Sihanouk's proposal is being considered. A conference leading to a compromise settlement is essential if Cambodia is to survive and if there is to be long-term stability in the area. Without the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops and the imposition of a genuinely neutralist Government in Cambodia, the conflict will surely continue in one form or another.
My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Dr. Glyn) referred to China's interest in the area. If the situation is allowed to drift, there is always a possibility that China will seek to punish the Vietnamese a second time either directly again or through Laos, that the Vietnamese economy will atrophy further, that thousands more boat people will flee to South-East Asian countries or to Hong Kong, and that Thailand will be threatened by Vietnam.
The survival of the Khmer people must surely be our first concern, but in terms of pure self-interest it is to the advantage of the British and other Western Governments to do everything that they can to press for compromise—and "compromise" is the governing word.
I fully appreciate the difficulties of moving the Vietnamese, but the key lies not in Hanoi but in Moscow. Vietnam depends on COMECON support for her economic survival. Vietnam's present

adventures won scant approval in Eastern Europe. Indeed, I believe that the Soviet Union attaches far more importance to the continuing approval and consent of the Poles than to propping up a bankrupt regime in Vietnam. The USSR may very well have an interest in a settlement. The West could also offer a new Marshall plan to all of Indo-China, contingent on an agreement being reached.
The House is entitled to know whether there is any possibility of a British initiative of that kind. If we can obtain information on that, the debate will have served a valuable purpose.

Mr. James Lamond: I offer no congratulations to the Government, but I congratulate the people of Britain, who have responded magnificently to the television programme by John Pilger and the "Blue Peter" appeal, and particularly the children.
When I listened to the speech of the Lord Privy Seal, I was appalled. He used this opportunity to try to blacken the name of Vietnam instead of laying the blame fairly and squarely where it should be—at the door of the United States and China. Their hands are covered with the blood of the people of Kampuchea. The Government's clothes are spattered with that blood because we stood by and made no protest about what was happening. When the United States secretly bombed Cambodia, did we make any protest? When China supported Pol Pot all the way and was Pol Pot's only friend in the world, were we appalled? When Pol Pot went to China and said that his most valuable support in the world was the advice of Chairman Mao, did we say that we were appalled by the actions of the Pol Pot Government?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) asked why there was a sudden lull in the interest shown about events in Kampuchea. The answer is that between 21 April 1978, when President Carter said that the Pol Pot regime was the most vicious violator of human rights in the world, and the present, Britain and the United States have been bending over backwards to be friendly to China. We were afraid to speak out as we should have done. We were afraid to stop the


recognition of Pol Pot. We should have discontinued that recognition as soon as he was overthrown. If we had any guts, we would recognise the Heng Samrin regime today.
I should like to share my experience and the happenings that I saw with my own eyes when I recently visited Kampuchea. I think I am the only hon. Member who has been there in the past few years. I can bear out all the evidence that has been printed in newspapers world-wide—in Time magazine, the New York Times, Newsweek, Le Monde. All those newspapers carried accurate reports about Kampuchea when Pol Pot was in charge. The reports were accurate because I saw the prisons that Pol Pot set up. I have seen hundreds of thousands of bodies that have been buried in mass graves, left lying by the roadside, left in open spaces, or thrown in wells. I have seen piles of children's clothes. I have seen buildings which have been destroyed. The educated who were invited back to Kampuchea were murdered when they arrived. All those facts are beyond dispute.
I refute the Lord Privy Seal's suggestion that the present situation in Kampuchea is worse than it was under Pol Pot. I have been there and have spoken freely to the people of Kampuchea. I have discussed with them what is happening. I am sure that that would have been impossible under Pol Pot. The people welcomed the Vietnamese troops when they arrived in Kampuchea because they rescued them from final annihiliation.
It is all very well for the Lord Privy Seal to say that the Vietnamese army should not have gone in and that the people of Kampuchea should have been left to resolve their difficulties. They could not resolve them, because they were under a vicious iron heel that prevented them from taking any action. It was only because the Vietnamese army and Government took humanitarian action that any of the people of Kampuchea are alive today.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar has said, why should the Vietnamese prevent help and food from going into Kampuchea when they are reducing their own meagre rations to help those people? They have sent 100,000 tons of rice, 20,000 tons of

seed rice, agricultural equipment and medical equipment of all sorts to assist them. They would not stand in the way of aid going to Kampuchea. They have done everything they can to make it possible.
If we want to make our aid more effective, we must take a further step than the belated step that was dragged from a reluctant Government after so many months of de-recognising Pol Pot. We should recognise the Heng Samrin regime. That will open the way to the acceptance of much more aid from Britain. Contrary to the belief of some Conservative Members, the day will never come when the present Government in Kampuchea will be overthrown. I believe that they have the full support of the people.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: This is not a time for recriminations about the past. Nor do I believe that it is the time for self-congratulation over the aid that we have managed to send to Kampuchea. It is a time for pity, for anger and for calm determination that we shall do all in our power to help those who suffer now and try to prevent anything of the sort from happening again.
I think that my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal had a difficult decision to make. In foreign policy there is often a conflict between right and right. In Kampuchea the British Government had to choose between one appalling wrong and another. My right hon. Friend showed courage in taking his decision, despite the invasion by the Vietnamese and despite the uncertainties, our knowledge being far from complete. He must now withdraw the recognition from the Pol Pot regime. That is a right decision and a courageous decision.
I shall remind the House of some of the consequences. We now officially recognise no Government. We have some nationals in Kampuchea, including those who are taking the aid to the people. There are some practical problems that are bound to arise when Her Majesty's Government recognise no Government. I have said that it took courage for my right hon. Friend to take the decision. In the weeks and months to come, we shall have to face some of the practical consequences.
Within limits we have done well in providing aid. I join those who congratulate the pilots and the aircrew of the Hercules and the many volunteers from Oxfam and other organisations who have tried desperately to help. However, is the aid enough? The figures speak for themselves. There have been 2 million to 3 million deaths. The total number now starving is about 4·5 million. About three-quarters of a million children will go to bed tonight, if they have a bed, desperately hungry. What have we done? Britain was the first country to provide aid. We have provided £1 million worth of rice and one or two aircraft. The European Community has provided 1,500 tonnes of dried milk and 25,000 tonnes of rice. We have done all that we can, but, when I compare the scale of the human tragedy with the scale of the response from the wealthy and the well-fed of the world, I am bound to say that the first is not commensurate with the second.
The conclusion to be drawn is that we must do more and do better. First, I suspect that helicopters will be critical in the distribution of aid. We all know that helicopters have done appalling damage in South-East Asia. During the American fighting I saw what the helicopter can do as a weapon of war. I am only too conscious of the role that helicopters can play. It would be appropriate if the Western world, including the United States, were able to mobilise a peaceful force of helicopters for the purpose of distributing aid in this difficult area of the world.
Secondly, I should like to see British armed forces once again doing what they have done magnificently throughout the world in the past, namely, giving more military aid to the civil power. Our engineers have helped in Thailand. They have helped in much of Africa. I believe that there is a part to be played at some stage—not now, but in the future—when the final days of reconstruction start to come about, as they will. This may be one of those areas where military aid to the civil power will have a part to play.
Finally, I look briefly to the future. I was interested in the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals) of an Anglo-Soviet spon-

sored conference. There may be something in that, although, as far as I can see, the Soviet Union has shown no easy disposition so far to agree. For my part, I see very little to be gained by looking to the Vietnamese for the salvation of Cambodia. It is an invasion. They have resisted the help from the Western world. I am told that they have even pick pocketed some of it on the way. Therefore, I do not look to the Vietnamese as the saviours of Cambodia, nor do I look to the Communist world as a whole. The Chinese backed Pol Pot. The Soviets are backing Vietnam. Nor indeed, I regret to say, do I look to the United Nations Organisation—for, in spite of its achievements for refugees, it was spurned by the local authorities. Quite frankly, as so often happens, it will be the like-minded humane nations of the West which will bring to the suffering people of Cambodia the best aid that can be found.
So often we in the West have denigrated ourselves and condemned our colonial past and our American friends. There is much to condemn on all our parts. But I know this: when the chips are down and aid is needed for humanitarian purposes, it is to the Western nations and their Governments that those who suffer most had best—and frequently—look.

Mr. David Alton: It is hard to believe that only six weeks ago the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Newens) asked a private notice question on the question of Cambodian aid. At that time, in answers to questions, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office answered myself in the following terrns: he believed that the important matter was not the question of recognition but rather the delivery of aid. I specifically asked him:
Will the Minister ensure that in her discussions with Chairman Hua next week the Prime Minister will place on the agenda as an urgent item the whole question of the dissociation of the Republic of China and the United Kingdom from the Pol Pot regime?
At that time the Minister of State dodged the question and talked about the long-standing agreement of different Governments in recognising and accepting that regime.
One wonders what has changed tonight. I am delighted with what the Lord Privy Seal said—that we are to dissociate ourselves from Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. At the same time, I wonder what has changed from what the Minister said on 22 October in answer to the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore), when he said:
The right hon. Gentleman should know the principles that successive Governments have followed for many years on recognition. We are following those principles precisely. I have stated that the Heng Samrin regime took power on the back of the Vietnamese army. If that army were withdrawn, the Heng Samrin regime might collapse."—[Official Report, 22 October 1979; Vol. 972, c. 31–34.]
It was pointed out that 90 per cent. of the territory in Kampuchea and 90 per cent. of the people were controlled by Heng Samrin and that Pol Pot had been pushed back into peripheral territory. The Government took a view then that I believe had far more to do with the impending visit of Chairman Hua than any compassionate or humanitarian motives. Indeed, one wonders what has really changed since John Pilger published his report in the Daily Mirror back in the summer. He said:
In attempting to describe the aftermath of the atrocity done to Cambodia, whose survivors are mostly starving children, words such as 'suffering greater than Biafra' look meaningless on the typewriter. For it is impossible to describe the sound and frequency of the cries of emaciated and sick children that have pursued us everywhere.
They have become something to avoid each day, and that also is impossible. You walk across the street from this shell of a hospital, from the rats and the bullet-blasted dispensary, and you still hear the cries.
Perhaps it is not so much the sound that is inescapable but the knowledge that the simplest things would save most of them: penicillin, which in Britain we dispense like Smarties, and dried milk, of which there is a surplus 'mountain' in Europe, and vitamins and so on.
One wonders why we could not listen to the voice of many journalists telling us what was happening in Kampuchea in the summer. On wonders why we went on for months and months talking about what we were doing to distribute aid and how we were going to play our part. Frankly, it seems to me—and to others—like pure crocodile tears.
In 1970, there were 7 million Cambodians. Today there are about 4 million. By the end of the year, there may be

only 2 million left. Half the people of that gentle country have died. It is not just journalists like Mr. Pilger who have told us of the atrocities which have occurred there. The right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar mentioned earlier that William Shawcross wrote in The Daily Telegraph one month ago saying:
Oxfam reckons that 100,000 tons of rice, 7,000 tons of oil, 15,000 tons of milk powder are needed in Cambodia at once if thousands upon thousands more are not to die. One International Red Cross official reported to Geneva in July that a massive international aid programme should be mounted at once".
That is a requirement to which we have not responded.
The crucial issue is whether we as a nation are prepared to speak out on behalf of the people who will otherwise die. The first thing that we should do is to ensure that a new international conference on Indo-China, like the one that was mounted in 1954, is called. Secondly, we must mount pressure on Hanoi and the USSR to allow aid to reach the people who need it. Thirdly, we should listen to the cries of people like Norodom Sihanouk. On 3 December, he wrote in The Guardian:
Hitler's murderers of the Jewish people were hanged; the Khmer Rouge murderers of the Khmer people are rewarded with votes at the United Nations and support elsewhere. Everything is being done to discourage me in my attempts to save my people".
The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) pointed out the dilemma that the Government and the country now face. It is all very well to withdraw recognition from Pol Pot—although I believe that we have taken far too long to do that. Having arrived at that conclusion—better late than never—we must now decide on our position with regard to Heng Samrin and the free Khmers. Rather than twisting and turning like cats in a bag, the Government must look to the future and decide what they can do to wipe away some of the blood that is on the hands of successive Governments who have failed to do anything to dissociate themselves from the bloody murderers in Kampuchea.
About 2 million Cambodians have died at the hands of the Pol Pot regime. At Tuol Sleng, one of their extermination centres, about 12,000 people were brutally murdered and then placed in incinerators.


They suffered in the same way as people suffered at Auschwitz in the last war. It is a matter of grave concern that we have stood back and taken so long before uttering the cries of condemnation that have been murmured in the Chamber tonight.
It is possible to be totally precise about the number of people who died at places like Tuol Sleng because the exterminator—

Sir Ian Gilmour: The hon. Gentleman should pay attention to the facts. The barbarities of the Pol Pot regime were denounced not only by the previous Administration but also by the present Administration. It is ridiculous to allege that they were condoned by either Government. The hon. Gentleman must pay attention to the facts.

Mr. Alton: When the Lord Privy Seal spoke earlier about ruthlessness, nihilistic and mindless killing, and torture and barbarism, I listened carefully. I found it strange that he and those on the Opposition Front Bench had taken so long to decide that these were matters of concern and so long to decide that they should finally dissociate themselves from Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Dame Judith Hart: I should like to support the Lord Privy Seal by saying that it is a considerable time since the British Government suspended aid to Cambodia on account of the human rights problems involved there.

Mr. Alton: I am aware of that, but it is only tonight that the Government have decided to withdraw their recognition of Pol Pot. Evidence has been available for a very long time about the atrocious acts which that barbaric Government were carrying out. If anything, the Front Benches are partners in crime—just as Kissinger and Nixon were perpetrators of those crimes. The present Government and their predecessors failed to speak up.
We need to face up to the issues raised by the Lord Privy Seal's statement. Instead of recriminations and criticisms of previous Governments, easy as they are to mount, I hope that all sides will be prepared to work together for an international solution to save the needless bloodshed of yet more people in that troubled country.

Sir Paul Bryan: As I have only five minutes in which to make my speech, I shall not dwell further on the horror picture of Cambodia that has justifiably been painted by both Front Bench speakers and a number of other hon. Members.
I should like to concentrate on a recent journey that I undertook to examine refugee camps, first in England at Sopley, Kensington barracks and Osterley, and, in company with the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands), a fairly thorough examination of camps in Hong Kong. I went on to see the camps on the Cambodian border.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) that this is not the occasion for self-congratulation, but our Government can take considerable credit for the lead that Britain has taken in a geographical region that is not really in our area of influence. We have taken the lead on the refugee problem, particularly through the Geneva conference.
The Foreign Secretary was impressed with what he saw and by the serious situation in Hong Kong, and it was on his advice that the Prime Minister called the conference. The Governor of Hong Kong Sir Murray MacLehose, instead of sitting back, went round the world preaching the gospel and impressing on the world that the refugees were an international problem which would not go away. All that was real leadership. If the conference had not taken place, many refugees would not now be settled in third countries.
Hong Kong is not the subject of our debate, but one can see hope there. The number of refugees is diminishing and the resettlement in third countries is getting under way. It is not progressing as quickly as we should like, but as long as we persist and keep the momentum going we can see hope there, and that is encouraging.
The situation on the Cambodian border is different. I had an extraordinary helicopter flight from Bangkok over many miles of rice and saw the agricultural wealth of Thailand. The camp that I visited had been in existence for only five days and was therefore in a rudimentary state, with about 33,000


people on a 40-acre site. It was more like a swarm of people than anything else.
Only 1,000 people—the sick—were under cover. The others were under small tarpaulins and so on. I cannot describe what a chaotic scene it was. There were piles of dead bodies here and there and emaciated children like those seen in newspapers and on television.
But there was hope, because it seemed that the camp would soon be well run. An admirable young Englishman, Mark Malloch Brown, was in charge of the extraordinary chaos. My hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development has visited the camp recently, and I am sure that the situation has improved. I saw another camp that had been in existence for five years, and that was in an orderly state.
The really depressing part of the situation is the future. In Hong Kong, one can imagine the ethnic Chinese-Vietnamese being eventually resettled in other countries, but I could not see that happening to a large proportion of the refugees on the Cambodian border. These were uneducated peasants who could not be settled in a Western country. The numbers were enormous, around 200,000, and that has built up since then. There is a long-term problem there. I agree with the Lord Privy Seal in his praise of the Thai Government and what they are doing. My only message is that the United Nations should take note of the help that will be required by the Thai Government, not just for the next six months—which is the period for which plans are being made—but for years ahead.
I do not see how it will be possible to move that mass of refugees who have only one thought, and that is to return to Cambodia. One is told that large areas of Cambodia are being taken over not only by the Vietnamese army but by the Vietnamese people, which means that there is nowhere for the refugees to go. I speak on the experience of one visit. It appears to be a long-term problem, and it is with that in view that the United Nations should concentrate on helping the Thai Government with their great burden.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: We are indebted to the hon. Member

for Howden (Sir P. Bryan) for his description of the camps.
Cambodia has created an emotion such as I have not seen in a similar case in my constituency. For example, the joint shop stewards' committee at British Leyland put a proposal to the management that some hours of overtime should be worked in order to present trucks to Cambodia.
Without vituperation, I wish to ask the Government Front Bench one question. I have had courteous interviews with the Minister who is to reply to the debate. We have been in correspondence for some months on this matter. Are the Government Front Bench sure that they are right in their opinions in relation to the Vietnamese?
The Minister spoke of his own time in Cambodia some 20 years ago. I concede that he was there for longer than I was, and I concede that in Cambodian history there has been dislike and fear of the Vietnamese. If we go back as far as the builders of Angkor Wat, we find that that is the tradition. But it is the sort of tradition seen between the Scottish and the English in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was my impression—admittedly after a shorter period than the hon. Gentleman, but 10 yearslater—that many of those surrounding Sihanouk knew the Vietnamese and grew up with them and that many were educated in Hanoi. Those who remained may well have asked the Vietnamese to come in.
The question is: who invited the Vietnamese, or who, in the opinion of the Government, invited the Vietnamese to come in? My impression is that they did not come in of their own volition. The Labour Party foreign affairs group has listened to the recent evidence of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Lamond) and others. We wish to know on what basis the Vietnamese came in in the first place. Our impression is that they came in to remove the shackles—I do not wish to be naive about it—as part of some sort of good-neighbour policy.
I do not doubt that some unpleasant things may well have happened, as in South-East Asia, and particularly in Indo-China there are some very unpleasant affairs. In these circumstances, it puts rather a different light on the recognition of what may be a Vietnamese-backed


Government. Unless we recognise that Government, we shall not be able to do many of the things that we would like to do through the aid that has been put forward, especially through the role of Oxfam.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann) asked me to raise one point. He received a letter from Oxfam saying:
We had hoped for payment towards the British Leyland trucks we are purchasing—now a further 20 by sea, on top of the 50 in the bulletin. But these are now almost all earmarked for funding by Blue Peter or other consortium members. So, ironically, we are not at present in a position to accept HMG funds for the purchase of British goods; but the situation could change in the future if we had something to count on.
Could the Minister comment on that?
I will stop now, in order to give my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) the opportunity to speak.

Mr. Michael Martin: Like my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), I, too, was heartened by the response within my constituency. I have received a great deal of correspondence and representation to urge the Government to do what they can.
I understood that in his statement a few weeks ago the Minister said that the contribution of the Government was £4 million. If that is so—and that is my understanding from Hansard—I should be grateful to have some clarification, because the sum of £2 million was raised by the "Blue Peter" programme, £1 million was raised by the ATV programme, and there have been many other donations. It would appear that the amount raised by the public donations may well exceed the Government contribution. Surely, if that is so, the Government could at the very least match the contribution given so generously by the people of this country.

Dame Judith Hart: First, may I put very firmly on the record that, as has been made clear in the contributions of my hon. Friends, the Opposition warmly welcome the announcement that the Lord Privy Seal has made that we are de-recognising the Pol Pot regime. As

he will know, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) has raised this matter over several weeks.
There are two questions in relation to it that I wish to put immediately, as there may be an opportunity for them to be answered in the Minister's final speech. First, is this now a shared view among EEC countries? Can we look forward to the possibility that other European and industrial countries will share with us this de-recognition of Pol Pot? If so, this could be of great importance.
My second point is one that has been touched on by one or two of my hon. Friends and also by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths). Dc-recognition, as the Lord Privy Seal has presented it tonight, appears to indicate a new piece of British international case law. I am quite sure that the Foreign Office is very perturbed at the thought of quite how to deal with it.
Up to now, we have always had the very firm policy that we recognised the Government who were in effective control of most of the country. Indeed, the Lord Privy Seal said tonight that it was largely on that basis that we were now de-recognising the Pol Pot regime. But I know of no real instances in which we have had this vacuum of recognition. If we move from de-recognition of Pol Pot, what happens about the recognition of the regime which is apparently in effective control?
As has already been said, what happens to the protection of British citizens in a country with which we can have no diplomatic relations until we recognise the regime which is in control? Are these new guidelines? How does the Lord Privy Seal propose to deal with that problem? It is a new problem, so far as I know, in terms of British diplomatic case law.
I turn now to the main issue. On each side of the House hon. Members have mentioned very effectively that the concern of people in Britain is for the children and their mothers and fathers in Cambodia. The "Blue Peter" programme, having raised £2 million, has put up its sights to £3 million. My child acquaintances tell me of the collections made in their schools and how they are putting their pocket money into the appeals for Cambodia. It is happening.


all over the country. As someone has said, I have had close enough relations with these matters for a number of years, and I know of no instance where public feeling has been so deeply aroused as it has in contemplation of the sufferings in Cambodia.
What I found disturbing about the remarks of the Lord Privy Seal was that in a sense he confirmed the kind of fears and anxieties that to some degree have prompted the British people's reaction to this problem. Reference was made to John Pilger in the Daily Mirrorand to the television programmes. There has been a deep anxiety—and I know that the Lord Privy Seal will understand this clearly—that somehow international politics were getting in the way of sending help to starving people. That has been the basic anxiety.
I must explain to my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar that I have already told the Lord Privy Seal how much we welcome the de-recognition of Pol Pot. In many ways the Lord Privy Seal spent a great deal of time explaining why there were such complications of international politics. In other words, to some degree he confirmed the feeling of people that this stood in the way of effectively channelling the assistance. As we all know, the money and the commitment of money are in themselves not enough. What matters in this complex situation is that the aid is channelled to those who need it.
That brings me to the question of the British contribution and the way in which it has been channelled. I ask another question immediately, because it is just possible that an answer may be found before the Minister replies. We have made a pledge. How much of the pledge has already been spent? In the matter of humanitarian aid, in circumstances as urgent as this, pledges are one thing but spending the money and getting the aid through to those who need it is quite another. I should like to know how much of the pledge has already been spent in grain, food and medical help which is already beginning to reach the people of Cambodia. The money is no good sitting in the bank in the form of a formal pledge to the United Nations.
Is the amount of money enough? I entirely agree that the British Government

responded reasonably quickly to the request for assistance. They responded with the original £4 million. But the later pledging conference of two or three weeks ago asked for £105 million. Does the Minister think that our £4 million to £5 million is enough in terms of what Britain ought to be contributing to a pledging conference which seeks £105 million to be spent over the three to six months? I do not think that it is. I think that it ought to be more.
We know that the right hon. Gentleman has directed his main attention towards the International Red Cross and UNICEF. My understanding is that UNICEF is now able to get its help through. With regard to some of the remarks that have been made about assistance from Vietnam, my official information from UNICEF is as follows:
UNICEF and ICRC and the World Food Programme have jointly delivered to Phnom Penh three times as much food and many times more quantities of drugs, vehicles and other supplies than any other agency or group of agencies, excepting Vietnam and the Soviet Union.
They are also contributing and we should take account of that.

Mr. Ennals: Does my right hon. Friend understand that one of the concerns is not just what gets through to Phnom Penh but what gets through from that city to the countryside? That is another point that I hope will be dealt with by the Minister.

Dame Judith Hart: I hope so. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will have heard, as I did this morning, one of the Oxfam representatives say that he was satisfied that Oxfam help was getting through to the people.
This is my last point, because I want to give the Minister time to reply to all the points that have been made. Why were the Government so reluctant to fund Oxfam in the very early stages of this operation? Oxfam was the organisation that, at the beginning and until recently, was internationally recognised by all the voluntary organisations in Europe as the agency able to get help through to the people. I recall that when Oxfam needed trucks and Land Rovers to help deliver its supplies within Cambodia, and asked the Overseas Development Agency whether it might purchase, or possibly


be supplied with, the 48 or 50 vehicles that are kept as a reserve in the disaster unit that I set up a few years ago, the reply was "No". Oxfam had to find its vehicles elsewhere, and yet those vehicles were sitting in the disaster unit of the ODA.
Why could not the Government have said "Oxfam wants these vehicles. We know all the international complications and the recognition problem that arose at the United Nations, but we also know that Oxfam is getting through to the people. Why can we not give that organisation the maximum help?" Why could not the Government have made money available from the £4 million that was already committed? Why could not that money be made available now? Why can we not extend the money that has been committed to the one organisation that is getting the supplies through?
Any minute now, we shall move out of the period of immediate relief into a period of reconstruction. That will mean going a little beyond simply feeding people and into rebuilding their medical services and the whole basis of life in a country that has been destroyed and so unhappily and tragically ruined by a ruthless regime. We are not talking about large sums of money, but we could be talking about more generous sums of money. We could respond to the latest appeal from the United Nations more generously. We could respond more intuitively and less bureaucratically.
If there is one occasion on which the will of the British people, on a non-party basis, has so expressed itself, it is on this occasion. The Minister would receive a great welcome from the Opposition if he were to respond with more heart to the needs of which we are all being made aware and which are so clearly understood by the people of Britain.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Peter Blaker): This has been an excellent debate. Hon Members on both sides of the House have spoken with great sincerity. They have put to me many questions, and in the short time available I shall do my best to answer as many as I can.
I shall begin by trying to answer two of the questions put by the right hon.

Member for Lanark (Dame Judith Hart). She asked about the position of other EEC countries on the question of recognition. About half of them are in the same position as we are now. Others still recognise the Pol Pot regime. The United States has adopted the same position as we have.
The right hon. Lady also asked about the implications of not recognising either regime. We are unable to recognise the Heng Samrin regime for the very simple reason that it does not accord with our criteria for doing so. Over the years successive British Governments have adopted criteria involving taking a view about the likely permanence of the command over the loyalties of the people which the regime in question possesses. It is our view that it is not right to assume that the loyalty, if any, that the Heng Samrin regime may command from the Cambodian people is likely to be permanent.
Much of the debate has been concerned with the humanitarian aspects of the appalling famine in Cambodia. That is quite right. The whole House has been in agreement on that matter. This appalling situation is no fault of the Cambodian people. When I lived there 20 years ago, Cambodia could rightly be described as a fat and peaceful land. It was one of the countries of Asia with a surplus of land and a surplus of food. It caused no danger to its neighbours.
Since then, it has suffered as much as any nation in modern history. First, it suffered from the unimaginable, inexplicable barbarities of the Pol Pot regime. That was a Cambodian regime, but it seemed out of character to those who knew the Cambodian people. Secondly, Cambodia suffered from the invasion by Vietnam which started on Christmas Day last year. It was concluded within a few weeks with control by the Vietnamese army of most of Cambodia and the installation of a Vietnamese puppet regime, under Heng Samrin, in the capital, Phnorn Penh.
I rather regretted the impression that the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) gave of condoning the Vietnamese invasion. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Dr. Glyn) was absolutely right when he said that that invasion was totally


in breach of the United Nations Charter and we should condemn it absolutely. I do not believe that the Vietnamese came as liberators. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) was right when he denied that they came in that capacity. I believe that they came with an acquisitive purpose.

Mr. Dalyell: Who invited them?

Mr. Blaker: I am just about to deal with that. The Vietnamese were invited in by a new party which was formed three weeks before the Vietnamese invasion with Heng Samrin as its leader. Heng Samrin was previously a subordinate of Pol Pot. The existence of this new party was first announced by Hanoi radio.
I join with other hon. Members who have paid tribute to the warm reaction of the British people to the famine in Cambodia. It is remarkable that after the "Blue Peter" programme the children of Britain raised £2 million in a few days. That is something for which they deserve great credit. It is a welcome sign that our people have lost none of their traditional sympathy for those in distress in other lands.
The British Government also have responded rapidly. The United Nations pledging conference for aid to Cambodia took place on 5 November. We had announced our aid programme on 6 October—a month before. We announced it within a few days of being told by the International Red Cross and UNICEF that they had reached an agreement with the authorities in Phnom Penh which would allow their relief operation to go ahead. We offered them a Hercules aircraft within 48 hours of being asked. That aircraft flew relief flights into Phnom Penh for over a month, carrying in 470 tons of aid, including 48 vehicles. Nobody can say that we were slow to respond.

Mr. James Lamond: Will the hon. Gentleman ask the Minister for Overseas Development when it was that he replied to a letter from myself and three of my hon. Friends? I will remind him it was in June this year. That reply stated that there was no money available for aid to Cambodia and that there was no food, not only in Britain but in Western Europe, that could be sent to Cambodia.

Mr. Blaker: No doubt my hon. Friend has noted the hon. Gentleman's question.

Dame Judith Hart: Dame Judith Hart rose—

Mr. Blaker: I am about to answer the question put to me by the right hon. Lady if she will allow me. I have very little time and I believe that hon. Members would wish me to answer as many questions as possible.
The right hon. Lady asked me how much aid we have provided. She knows how much we have offered. The airlift cost us £250,000. The world food programme already has received from us £800,000 as an initial payment to buy and deliver rice. The disaster emergency committee has been offered £480,000, and we are awaiting a reply about the acceptance of that sum.

Dame Judith Hart: I have two points to make. I asked the hon. Gentleman how much had been spent. I said that £4 million in the bank was no good. From what the hon. Gentleman has said, only about a quarter, or a little more, of what has been offered has been spent. Does he agree that, when we made the original commitment of £4 million, that was before the United Nations had made its assessment of what was likely to be needed over the next six months? We have made no further response to that assessment as to what is needed for six months.

Mr. Blaker: The right hon. Lady, if she compares what we have offered to what has been offered by other countries of comparable size and wealth, will find that we are not doing at all badly. As for our other offers, we have promised nearly £2 million to the ICRC-UNICEF appeal. Our share of the European Economic Community's aid for relief in Cambodia will be about £3½ million. In all, the aid that we have given and promised amounts to about £7¼ million.
What I am about to say is relevant to the right hon. Lady's questions. The problem now is not to obtain more promises of aid, or indeed to obtain more rice, but to make sure that the aid which is already available reaches the needy. Here there is ground for concern, as my right hon. Friend told the House. There are now many more vehicles in Cambodia. Forty-eight were flown in on our Hercules aircraft. The worrying aspect


is the refusal of the Heng Samrin authorities to allow into the country the number of workers which the voluntary agencies say are necessary for the proper distribution of the relief supplies. We have also had reports of deliberate obstruction by the Vietnamese and the Heng Samrin regime of the distribution of aid.
It has been suggested that our aid was held up for political reasons during the summer, that we delayed it either to please the Chinese or to use it as a lever against the Heng Samrin regime. There is not a scrap of truth in those allegations. My right hon. and noble Friend the Foreign Secretary said at the conference in Geneva in July:
The pressure on Thailand is already acute. It could become intolerable if fighting continues in Cambodia and if there is a serious famine there. The international community must do what it can immediately to provide food for the starving under effective international supervision. There must be an end to the lighting. A political solution to the problems of this miserable and war-ravaged country must be found.

Mr. Ennals: Will the hon. Member give way?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Minister is not giving way.

Mr. Blaker: The distribution was held up by the insistence of the Heng Samrin regime on conditions that the Red Cross and UNICEF found unacceptable. An example was that only the Heng Samrin regime should distribute aid and that none of the aid should go to people in areas controlled by Pol Pot. The UNICEF and ICRC authorities found those conditions unacceptable, and I am not surprised at that.

Mr. Ennals: Give way.

Mr. Blaker: The authorities in Phnom Penh did not admit that there was a famine until 26 September. We do not know why they changed their minds then. Perhaps it was connected with their losing an important vote in the United Nations when their credentials were rejected.
It has been argued that our continued recognition of Pol Pot has delayed the giving of aid. There is no truth in that. Our aid had already been given to areas controlled by Heng Samrin, as has that of other countries, even when we continued to recognise Pol Pot. The Foreign

Minister of the Heng Samrin regime has said publicly that recognition of that regime was not a condition of accepting aid.
I have already explained why we cannot and will not recognise the Heng Samrin regime. It was brought in by the Vietnamese army. Anybody who has lived for two years in Cambodia, as I have, will know that one of the strongest feelings of the Cambodian people is fear—hatred would not be too strong a word—of the Vietnamese. A so-called ruler who was brought in on the back of the Vietnamese army could not survive when the support of the Vietnamese army was removed.
Our position on the question of credentials in the United Nations is a separate issue. There have been occasions when the United Kingdom Government have supported the credentials of delegations representing States or Governments which the United Kingdom did not recognise. We have made clear that acceptance of credentials is not an act of recognition. This is also the practice of other countries. Several countries which do not recognise the Pol Pot regime voted in favour of the acceptance of his delegation's credentials at the current General Assembly. Among them were the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America.
We shall continue to work with our friends in opposing attempts to secure international acceptance of the Heng Samrin puppet regime. I say that because I believe that there was confusion in the mind of the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar when he said that 70 nations voted at the United Nations to recognise the Pol Pot regime. They voted not to recognise it but to accept credentials. That is different.
Hon. Members have rightly referred to the dangers which the present position imposes for Thailand. My hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Sir P. Bryan) was particularly eloquent on that score. The Government's firm determination is to support ASEAN and Thailand. We pay tribute to the admirable posture that the Government of Thailand have adopted in accepting the refugees.

Mr. Ennals: Will the hon. Member please give way?

Mr. Blaker: I will not give way.
Reference was made to the proposal by the Thai Prime Minister for an observer force stationed on the Thai-Cambodia border which could deter the Vietnamese from pursuing their victims on to Thai territory. The Government support that proposal. We support a further proposal for a safe area along the border area in Thailand where refugee camps are located which would be secure from the depredations of the Vietnamese troops. However, those proposals do not get to the root of the problem.
The root of the problem is Vietnamese aggression, backed by military and other supplies from the Soviet Union and by the Soviet veto in the Security Council when the ASEAN countries tabled their resolution in February calling for the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia.
The continued Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia is not only an injustice but a source of danger to the whole of South-East Asia. It is a provocation to China. I cannot judge whether the Government of Vietnam are prepared to listen to world opinion. During the summer, at the Geneva conference, it appeared that they were prepared to do so. So far they have not responded to the recent ASEAN resolution at the United Nations. I do not think that the world will continue to tolerate the continued seizure by Vietnam of a small neighbour which has done it no harm.
My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) raised a question about Prince Sihanouk. We have been in touch with Prince Sihanouk and he knows that he is welcome in Britain. I am not sure whether a repetition of the 1954 conference—

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

CITIZENS BAND RADIO

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Mather.]

10 pm

Mr. Patrick Wall: I shall start by explaining the principles of citizens band radio. It is a small, hand-

held wireless set, which is a two-way communication over a short distance of about 10 to 15 miles. The cost of a set in this country is approximately £80 to £120.
Citizens band radio started in the United States in 1973. There are now over10 million sets in the United States. The sets are fitted largely to lorries and motor cars, and a special language is developed. I think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will have heard of Smokey Bear. That phrase means traffic cops. I doubt, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether you have heard of the expression "Check the seat covers", which means "Look out for pretty girls".
When citizens band radio started in the United States, it was opposed by the police. They thought it was a bad idea for many reasons. Now they are wholeheartedly in favour of it. Citizens band radio is now legal in 19 countries of the world, including 13 European countries.
We have a lesson to learn from Australia, which was forced to legalise oitizens band radio because there were a large number of illegal sets operating in that country on the frequency of 27 mHz, which, as I shall point out later, is a bad frequency. I hope that that is not allowed to happen here.
In 1977–78 the National Electronics Council set up a working party on CB radio. It reported in 1978. I quote briefly from its report:
"1. High Quality for the citizens band radio service should be introduced in the United Kingdom.
2. The service should operate on a specially allocated frequency band, somewhere between 100 and 500 mHz.
3. Frequencies close to 27 mHz used in many other countries who operate citizens band radio have serious problems, and therefore should not be used.
4. All equipment should be subject to tight approval and an adequate technical standard set, with the aim of avoiding interference from other services or domestic electronic equipment.
5.Licensing procedures should be as simple as possible, consistent with the need to avoid abuse of the service."
That is the type of service that we believe should be legalised in Great Britain. I understand that the British Radio Equipment Manufacturers Association reached the same conclusion.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House raised questions on the matter in


the previous Parliament. I did so, and it was made clear by the previous Government that they would not approve citizens band radio. After the general election a Government who believe in freedom of the air, provided that it does not interfere with other people's freedom, came to power. An all-party parliamentary committee was formed. I was elected as chairman of that committee. The hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) is vice-chairman, and my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mr. Butcher) is its secretary. Mr. Town of the GLC is our technical adviser.
We met my hon. Friend the Minister of State in July of this year and put certain points to him.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend—and to his staff—because he received us in July and, when we went to see him again in November, clearly the Home Office had done a great deal of work on this matter. I am sure that he will allow me to say that, in the first instance, he was sympathetic. He pointed out that no legislation was required—that is important—but that there were administrative problems regarding regulations, frequencies and interference.
When we met the Minister the second time, in November, he had come to the same conclusion as we had, namely, that 27 mHz was the wrong frequency for a number of reasons. He said that there were no insuperable technical difficulties, which I felt was important. The main problem, as I understood it, as far as the Minister and the Home Office were concerned, was that any legislation of CB radio would need an increase of civil servants at a time when the Government were cutting the number of civil servants.

Mr. John Butcher: I agree with my hon. Friend that the Minister is rightly concerned that we should not increase public expenditure or exacerbate the problem with increasing bureaucracy. I bear in mind an unhappy experience with the driving and vehicle licensing centre at Swansea. If we have two problems to cope with to get citizens band radio legalised, and if those two problems are licensing and consequently monitoring illegal operators, could not the Government ask for tenders from a number of outside private computer bureaux and issue a specification

for a licensing requirement? Could my hon. Friend help the Department by producing a specification such that the money raised could be paid to the GPO for a random monitoring service?

Mr. Wall: My hon. Friend has made an excellent suggestion. Computerisation would serve to cut down the number of civil servants. We have not yet been told how many would be required. I gather that it is difficult to estimate that at present. However, our guess—it is purely a guess—is 30 or 40. We are attempting to convince the Home Office that public pressure, which I shall show exists, and the creation of what will be a multi-million pound industry should be balanced against a possible addition of 30 or 40 civil servants. Indeed, the number could be reduced even further if my hon. Friend's suggestion of computerisation were put into effect. I shall bring up the question of finance later.
Why do we want citizens band radio? We want it, first, because the present law is stupid. For example, if a farmer has a couple of tractors and wants to be able to communicate with the driver of one because the other has broken down, or to direct him in a different direction, what does he do? With citizens band radio being legalised, he spends £70 to £90 on two sets and he can then talk to his two tractor drivers. But that today is illegal.
I understand that he has an alternative. He applies for local mobile equipment. That will cost about £900 and take six months to obtain a licence, which will cost £28. But once he gets it he cannot use it for commercial purposes. Therefore, it is of no use for his farm.
He has another alternative. He can apply for a licence for commercial use. The instrumentation will cost another £900. But there are too few bands, so it is unlikely that he will get it. If he does, he can speak only from fixed to mobile, so he cannot communicate from tractor to tractor. Therefore that is not satisfactory.
There is yet another alternative in the law as it stands today. He can hire a mobile telephone from the GPO for £25. But I understand that the GPO has run out of numbers. I am told that the waiting time in London is two years for a number for a radio telephone of the kind that one sees in expensive motor cars.


Therefore, that will not be of much use to my farmer friend. Not only that, but one has to speak on a radio telephone from mobile to fixed to mobile. That means that there will be two calls each time at 34p each call. The cost of such equipment is about £1,000. Therefore, the farmer cannot do anything about it. In other words, there is no cheap, rapid form of legal communication in this country today. I submit that in the modern world that is essential.
We believe that the whole scheme could be self-financing. The estimate for the market in this country is between 6 million and 8 million sets. Even if we take 6 million sets at about £75 each, if my arithmetic is right, that is £450 million. VAT on that sum would be £76½ million. A £5 licence fee for a set with a net life of three years is a further £30 million. I hope that the Minister will tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer that that is a way of obtaining revenue of well over £500 million each year, and that that will make him realise that there is something in the proposal.
There are uses for citizens band radio other than those that I have mentioned for cars and lorries. Cars and lorries are important. Anyone who has had a breakdown on the M1 knows how long it takes to get to a telephone and for a van to come out. In America, a motorist who has broken down can talk to a passing vehicle on his CB radio and get help immediately.
More importantly, however, last year in Scotland people were buried in snow and died of exposure, and if they had had CB radios that would not have happened. They could have communicated with someone within a range of 10 to 15 miles to summon a helicopter, the police or another rescue device.

Mr. Allan Stewart: Is my hon. Friend aware that in Scotland there is immense concern on that score and that the proposal to legalise CB radio has immense support?

Mr. Wall: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Safety regulations, not only in Scotland but for mountaineering rescue teams, for example, in Wales, would be helped enormously by the introduction of

CB radio. In the United States it is claimed that 7,000 lives have already been saved through CB radios.
Last and not least, it is fun. Why should we not enjoy ourselves in this country today? To put the matter more seriously, why should people in this country be denied freedom of the air? That restriction is totally unnecessary, and the monopoly exercised by the Post Office and the Home Office cannot be justified any longer.
There are two major CB organisations in this country—the CB Association and the United Kingdom CB Campaign. There are also many CB clubs. Last Sunday I had the privilege of attending a meeting in Birmingham of about 120 CB enthusiasts. The clubs were asked to tell us their membership. The total representation there was 8,000, and that was in one rapidly summoned meeting, which illustrates that there is a great deal of public interest.
Unfortunately, I am also told that there are about 30,000 to 70,000 illegal CB sets—because CB radios are illegal in this country. I cannot prove that number, but when I asked my hon. Friend how many prosecutions there had been he told me in a written answer that there were four in 1977, three in 1978 and this year, to date, plus those pending, the figure is 134, which shows that the police have been busy and that the number of CB users is increasing, even though the practice is illegal. I do not condone illegal operation, particularly on 27 mHz, which, as I said, is a bad frequency, but this situation could rapidly get out of hand. I do not like laws to be broken, but, if the law is silly, that sometimes happens. It is a bad thing, but let us remember what happened in Australia.
There are difficulties in the way, and there are always two sides to a story. Let me put the other side. It is said that American and Japanese sets will flood the country. America and Japan allow broadcasting on 27 mHz and all their sets would be on that frequency, which is illegal here and, I hope, will remain so. That frequency gives poor reception, sometimes interferes with television and has a longer range than the 10 or 15 miles that we need. It also brings controlled model aircraft crashing to the ground, and we have committed ourselves to the model


aircraft enthusiasts to keep well clear of that frequency. The market is not likely to be flooded with Japanese sets if we keep off that frequency.
What is the market? The National Electronics Council estimates the requirement at about 8 million sets. Even if we take 6 million to 8 million sets, the scheme will be self-financing. I have referred already to the income to the Exchequer from licence fees and VAT. We are therefore considering the question of bodies and not pounds.
Another argument is that CB radios could, be used illegally, for instance by burglars, but if I am right that there are a large number of illegal sets already, they can do so now. There is one important safeguard. When the CB radio is legalised, as I hope that it will be, an electronic device will be built into each set to identify it. Those monitoring can therefore check any illegal operation and check those who have not paid their licences. They can probably check those licences rather more easily than they can those for television sets. That difficulty can be overcome quite easily.
Radio hams, or amateurs, are worried that their numbers will decrease because of citizens band radio. I think that they are wrong and that the opposite will be true. Most people want citizens band radio as a rapid and cheap means of communication, but some will want to go further and will take the examinations. They will become amateur radio enthusiasts. That will be a good thing for them and for Britain. Public opinion is much stronger than the Home Office thinks. The Minister has told me that he has received 3,300 letters on this subject since May. That will be a drop in the ocean compared to the number of letters that he will receive during the next few months. There is strong feeling about citizens band radio.
The reason that has been given for keeping citizens band radio illegal is an administrative one. I accept that, because the Government have announced today that they are cutting down numbers in the Civil Service. It is therefore difficult to say that we must have more manpower for this purpose. However, public demand must be satisfied. The creation of a multi-million pound industry should be balanced against the need for a rela-

tively small number of civil servants. I realise that the Minister cannot give a definite reply tonight, but I hope that he can make a statement in principle on the legalisation of citizens band radio in the very near future.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Timothy Raison): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) for raising this issue and for his kind words about me. There is a body of opinion that is in favour of some form of citizens band radio. However, I do not know whether it is as massive as my hon. Friend has indicated.
The issues and implications are not yet well understood by the general public, and I therefore welcome the opportunity to discuss this subject tonight. At the same time—as I think that my hon. Friend has realised—I cannot announce today any Government decision on citizens band. As I told my hon. Friend on 30 November, a decision has not yet been taken. A great deal of useful work has been done within my Department to crystallise the issue.
We can begin to balance the undoubted attractions of citizens band against the inevitable penalties. I am not sure whether the estimate of 6 million or 8 million citizens band radio sets was realistic, but I recognise that the subject is worthy of debate. Tonight's debate will be helpful, and I am sorry that there has not been time for me to allow others of my hon. Friends to participate. It is important that I say a few words.
My hon. Friend has already defined citizens band. Like my hon. Friend, I emphasise that the true concept of citizens band is a short-range service, since in some circumstances 27 mHz signals can be reflected from the ionosphere. It is possible using such equipment—commonly used in other countries for citizens band—to establish communication over long distances, and even internationally. I do not believe that such effects are any part of a personal radio service. An individual who wishes to use sophisticated equipment to communicate over long ranges and with international contacts can become a licensed radio amateur. Most of the claimed social uses of citizens band fall well outside that category. Most


advocates of citizens band would, I think, accept that a range of a few miles in a flat rural environment would be adequate, though naturally lower ranges would be obtained using mobile equipment or hand-portable equipment or in a crowded urban environment. Essentially, of course, citizens band offers a two-way personal communication system and not a potential broadcasting service.
Those who argue in favour of a citizens band usually do so on two general grounds. First, there is the argument based on grounds of personal freedom—that any citizen should have a right of access to the radio frequency spectrum unless there are good reasons otherwise. Secondly, it is often claimed that citizens band would fulfil a useful function—not least in emergency conditions. These latter arguments are seldom clear cut. Some of the benefits claimed elsewhere in the world are obtained in areas of very different geographical characteristics, such as the United States, and, as I have already suggested, by the use of a frequency band and amplification which in themselves add greatly to the problems of control and to the difficulties of other spectrum users.
In addition, the benefits often also carry drawbacks. As an example, it is argued that citizens band could be used to exchange information on motoring hazards, such as traffic congestion and fog, and would therefore make motoring safer. On the other hand, it could also be used to pass warnings of police activity such as speed checks. It is true that broadcast warnings of a radar trap might help road safety by reducing speeds for a longer period and over a wider area than might otherwise be the case, but the point remains—the Home Office must take note of this—that CB would be being used to co-ordinate illegal activity. It can be used for good or ill, and experience in other countries demonstrates clearly both sides of the picture.
The argument based on personal freedom is the really strong one. It is valid to suggest that citizens should have the right to the facility unless there are very strong reasons why not. As a Government, we find this argument highly persuasive and one which should be disregarded only if wider considerations of the public good outweigh it.
If the argument of personal freedom is in general terms attractive to us as a Government, what are the other considerations that we have to balance against this? First, there is the question of a suitable frequency. What certainly is very clear from the thorough studies which have already been carried out is that the 27 mHz frequency band would not be appropriate if we decided to introduce a new facility. My hon. Friend made that clear. I have already stressed that the ranges obtainable by the use of this band, particularly when linear amplifiers are also used, do not seem to me to be in principle what a CB facility should be seeking. In practical terms, too, the increased range brings difficulties. Interference is spread over much wider areas. Channels become cluttered and virtually unusable, particularly in the large urban areas. Finally, the use of this band in the United Kingdom for this purpose operates directly against other law-abiding users of the spectrum.
There is illicit use of the 27 mHz band at present, although I would regard my hon. Friend's estimate of this as pretty much on the high side. I think that my hon. Friend will be interested to know that a recent routine monitoring exercise covering the whole country on a busy weekend identified about 1,350 illegal transmitters spread fairly evenly throughout the United Kingdom. Clearly the use of this band directly threatens the users of hospital paging systems and the activities of model control enthusiasts. The harmonics of such transmissions can also interfere with broadcasting, the emergency services, old people's alarm systems, and aircraft operation.
Those who use 27 mHz equipment illicitly are thus not campaigners for freedom. They are quite selfishly putting their fellow citizens at risk, and I can assure the House that action will continue to be taken against those who behave in this way. The importation and use of this equipment is already illegal, and we shall also consider very seriously whether we should take powers to ban its sale or advertising.
There are other considerations to be borne in mind, too. The world administrative radio conference in Geneva has just finished its work. This conference was not concerned with citizens band as


such, but it has been establishing the pattern of radio use for the next 20 years. Until we know its outcome and have studied some of its implications, it could be unwise to settle on a particular frequency.
I am not suggesting that a part of the spectrum could not be made available, but it would have to be the right part. The choice of frequency would be crucial to the success of any new service, and it is neither as quick nor as simple as some of the advocates of CB would have us believe.

Mr. Wall: What about the old black and white television 405 frequency?

Mr. Raison: There are considerable problems of almost a political nature about that. I do not want to go into that in any detail. We have not reached the stage when it would be a simple matter to abandon that frequency.
These considerations lead us naturally to the question of interference. Of course, CB could not be allowed to prejudice the activities of other authorised and, in general, more important users of the spectrum. Some of the bands which we have examined would give rise to serious problems. Their effects, given countryside use, on, for example, broadcasting activities would be unacceptable.
A proper specification and good frequency planning could minimise the risks of interference but could never entirely eliminate it. Even where there is no relationship between the frequencies concerned, so-called break-in would affect, to some extent or another, such things as television receivers or hi-fi equipment, either through inadequacies in receivers or because of the sheer proximity of equipment, especially since a CB service would operate much more widely in residential areas, blocks of flats and so forth than existing private mobile radio services. Such interference can generally be dealt with by fitting filters to the equipment being interfered with; even so, a number of citizens would be put to inconvenience and personal expense by the activities of others. Complaints of interference would increase; the work load of the Post Office's radio interference service, which acts as our agent in the field, would increase; and thus the

costs of that service, which fall upon public funds, would also rise.
The question of resource and staff costs is crucial to our consideration of the issue. Were we to decide to introduce CB, its regulation should be as simple and as free from bureaucratic shackles as can be devised. We can be certain that abuses would occur within any new allocated band. These might include the use of the frequency for anti-social purposes, obscene language, and deliberate jamming of frequencies, all of which are well documented occurrences in other countries. But my own view is that we could not set out to try to regulate this. A small army of officials would be required to make any impact upon the problem. I believe that users would have to live with these difficulties themselves. This is the obverse of the personal freedom coin.
On the other hand, we could not opt out of regulation and control altogether. We would have to ensure that a new service did not cause unacceptable interference to other users, we would have to ensure that proper equipment was used and we might wish to retain some sanction against the user who deliberately behaves improperly or causes risk to other services. We therefore see a need for a licensing system, backed up by some form of technical control, and it is only fair to say that, virtually without exception, those who have argued for CB in this country have assumed that such a system would operate. I accept that simplicity would be vital. Anything else would run counter to the concept of freedom implicit in the idea of citizens band.
But however simple the system, there would be a requirement for staff to carry out the administrative and regulatory functions. We would probably be talking of tens of civil servants rather than individuals or hundreds, but even that requirement carries great difficulties in present circumstances. As a Government, we know that the public sector is too big. It would therefore be a most serious undertaking to expand it, in however small a degree, in order to operate a new facility which, however desirable, is not essential.

Mr. Tim Rathbone: Mr. Tim Rathbone(Lewis) rose—

Mr. Raison: I heard my hon. Friend's comment about this. I was interested in what he said. It is worth thinking about, although I have some doubts about it.

Mr. Rathbone: May I put one brief suggestion to the Minister? Could not he use an agency which already exists both to collect the finance—the licensing—and also to administer it? That might be the IBA.

Mr. Raison: As we go into this, clearly we are looking at the various possibilities. I am interested in my hon. Friend's suggestion.
May I briefly sum up? I believe that experience in other parts of the world points up very clearly the sharply increased work load both in the regulatory and the monitoring and enforcement fields when a CB service has been introduced. This, then, is the area which must concern us greatly in the present economic climate. Nevertheless, I emphasise once more that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I have reached no final decision. We shall continue to try to reduce the difficulties I have outlined tonight. I believe that, although this has been a short debate, it has been useful to us in pursuing our objective.

Mr. Tim Rathbone: I should like to add one postscript in the few remaining minutes of the debate. Free

communication between well-behaved citizens should be not only allowed but encouraged by a Conservative Government as long as it does not hurt other citizens. That is what my hon. Friends, others and I have been arguing for a long time.
In addition, I should like to point out how free communications seems to be a point of prime consideration for those on the well-filled Government Benches, although not one of any of the Opposition parties is present to take any interest in the subject. I think that it is as well to note that in the record.

Mr. Michael Colvin: When my hon. Friend the Minister of State pointed out the pros and cons of citizens band radio, he omitted to say that it might well be a net revenue earner to the Government. As we are concerned to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement, it could be of benefit to the Exchequer at this time. At the same time, the Minister overlooked the fact that, if manufacturing industry in this country accepted the challenge of citizens band radio, it would make a difference of 5,000 or 10,000 jobs in manufacturing industry in Britain today.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.